Regulators, developers too cozy

By Times editorial
Published July 31, 2006

So the man who heads the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Florida is going to take a new job with a developer who might want to build on some Pasco County wetlands. And which agency issues permits to destroy wetlands? If you guessed the Corps of Engineers, you're starting to understand the revolving door between government regulators and those they regulate.

Not that there's any prohibition against Col. Robert Carpenter becoming president of Grubbs Emergency Services, which owns a coastal rock mine that could become a resort and marina one day. No law says Carpenter can't retire from the corps and join Grubbs.

Still, the odds are already stacked in favor of developers when it comes to destroying wetlands.

A St. Petersburg Times investigation found that Florida lost 84,000 acres of wetlands to development in the past 15 years, all through permits issued by the corps.

No doubt Carpenter is a skilled administrator who will be an asset to Grubbs, especially if the company decides to develop its land. But it is this kind of coziness between government official and developer that makes taxpayers wonder whose side the regulators are on.

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Lake candidates differ on role of developers' cash
Daily Commercial 

Monday, July 31, 2006

LEESBURG - If money won elections, developers in and out of Lake County would decide who the next Lake County commissioners would be.

In District 2, which covers parts of south Lake County, almost half of the money raised by incumbent County Commissioner Robert Pool comes from developers outside the county, according to a June campaign report. Pool has raised $32,060 so far. His opponent, three-term Clermont City Councilwoman Elaine Renick, has raised $5,990, $1,000 of which did not come from county residents.

The two candidates say they have different philosophical approaches to Lake County growth, as well as to how their own campaigns should be funded.

Pool said campaign contributions from developers aren't rewards for positive votes, but investments in a candidate who will protect property rights.

"I think people will invest in elected officials who they have confidence in and who will do the right thing," Pool said. "When you approve projects, you do it because it's the right thing, not just because they gave you a campaign contribution."

Pool received $1,500 from owners and employees of Mission Inn. Pool voted in favor of Las Collinas, a Mission Inn expansion of 984 residential units. Pool also received $350 from Center Lake Properties, which is developing the Black West project in Clermont.

The largest windfall for Pool has come from Plaza Collina. The developer, construction company, landowner and others have donated a total of $8,500 to the Pool campaign.

"They want to keep people like me who understand the benefit of economic development," Pool said of the Plaza Collina donors. "I see it as investing in Lake County."

Renick, who said she is the "slow growth candidate," said candidates must make a judgment call when it comes to campaign contributions.

"I would rather be the low-budget candidate than have to worry later on someone would think I owed them," Renick said. "I'm not going to have the huge developers approaching me. If they did, I wouldn't want to take that money ... they are going to my opponent, and that's fine. It's hard to run a campaign without money, but you do what you can."

The two will vie against Douglas Conway, a former county employee who claimed whistleblower protection in regard to what he believed were improper actions at county offices, in September's Republican primary election. That candidate will then face write-in candidate Hubert Dale Martin III.

Conway and Martin both filed after candidates were required to turn in information regarding campaign contributions.

District 4

County Commissioner Catherine Hanson also received her share of developer contributions. Hanson's campaign had received $30,920, a majority of which came from developers and almost a quarter of which was from outside the county.

Donors from within Lake County included companies that create landfills, cement plants and sand mines.

Hanson rejects any idea that she is in the hands of developers.

"I voted against a lot of projects, even some I got contributions from," Hanson said. "My vote is not for sale."

Hanson even conducted her own study. Hanson said she is being called "pro-growth" while fellow Commissioners Jennifer Hill and Welton Cadwell are being labeled "moderate or low-growth" individuals.

Based on her study, Hanson said she has voted against more homes since January, 2002, than either Hill or Cadwell. She said she looked only at cases of residential zonings that allowed for an increase in the number of allowed homes and weren't decided unanimously.

"I figure if I voted against more than them, what's the difference between slow and moderate growth? I consider myself moderate growth and I'm committed to that," Hanson said.

Her opponent, Egor Emory, has raised $3,736, mostly from small donations. Emory said he would never take money from a developer, because of "the corrupting influence of money and politics."

"I don't want to be put in a position where there is any doubt about obligation or returned favors," he said.

Emory said it's frustrating to see development fueling the Lake County political machine, because it has been that way for 20 years. Emory said it's the same names and same companies.

"People have a chance to vote for a change or go forward and continue on with the dismal path we're currently on," Emory said.

Hanson will face Linda Stewart in the Republican primary in September, before facing Emery in the general election in November.

How to cram 'em in

Land prices prompt developers to embrace taller, denser projects

Sandra Pedicini
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 31, 2006

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned a community where each family would live on at least an acre of land. He called it Broadacre City.

These days, the trend is just the opposite.

Spurred mainly by soaring land prices, developers are squeezing as many dwellings as possible onto as small a space as possible, with single-family homes often within arm's reach of one another and multifamily complexes reaching for the sky.

This higher density is taking many forms, from residential high-rise towers and neotraditional communities that mix town houses with standalone homes to town centers that bring together places where people live, work and play.

Economics may be driving the trend, but there's also the urgent need to accommodate a population that is expected to double to more than 7 million by 2050 in Central Florida. Planners must squeeze in these newcomers while still preserving environmentally sensitive lands that provide the region's drinking-water supply, lakes, springs and wetland wildlife habitats.

At the same time, proponents say, these new developments can reduce sprawl and automobile trips; encourage other modes of transportation, such as biking, walking and public transit; foster a sense of community; use less water for irrigation; leave more open space for parks, trails and woods; and provide greater opportunity for mixed-income housing.

But high density also brings protests, with critics complaining about the potential negative effects, such as school overcrowding from concentrations of town houses and more, not less, traffic.

"Most of the people just don't like the idea of these town houses anymore," said Helga Schwarz, who has opposed denser development in Winter Springs. "They're just getting up in arms about it."

The trend is dramatic in Winter Springs. Last year, permits were pulled for 116 new multifamily units, compared with just 19 new single-family homes.

In some areas, particularly where other people live nearby, "there's a lot of resistance based on, 'Are you sure you'll have enough parking?' 'Can our roads take any more traffic?' " said Payton Chung, a research coordinator with the Congress for New Urbanism, an organization that encourages development of dense, mixed-use developments.

Changing the small-town or suburban way of life is another concern. Residents of Orlando's College Park neighborhood, Maitland and Winter Park have protested plans for multistory condos. Some Ormond Beach residents are trying to write strict building-height limits into the city charter amid development plans for hotel and condo towers as high as 19 stories along the ocean. Winter Springs recently passed an ordinance meant to make it easier for city officials to limit density outside its town center.

But the high-rises keep coming.

A Sanford developer who is wrapping up construction on the first phase of a six-story condo along Lake Monroe wants to build a 12-story project on nearby Marina Island.

Along the Halifax River in Volusia County, construction is under way on Marina Grande -- four 25-story towers that will place 972 condos on an 18-acre site.

Volusia County Council Chairman Frank Bruno said he thinks the waterfront makes sense for more dense development.

"I'd rather have them going there than going in the rural areas of our county," he said. "A concentrated area of population is better than it being spread out all over the place."

It wasn't always this way

Thirty years ago, a quarter- to a half-acre was the most common lot size for new homes. Now, the greatest percentage of homes are on lots of 7,000 square feet -- less than a fifth of an acre -- or smaller. Since 1976, the number of new homes nationwide with lot sizes of less than 7,000 square feet has jumped 237.2 percent.

Five years ago, Morrison Homes constructed no town-house communities in the Orlando area. Now, such multifamily developments account for 40 percent of the company's dwellings in Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties. Morrison officials expect that will jump to 70 percent next year.

With land getting more expensive, the company must squeeze more dwellings onto properties to keep them at prices buyers can afford. In the past five years, Morrison officials said, the price of a 50-foot home site has doubled to about $80,000.

Many town houses are being purchased by first-time buyers who settle on less space but are not necessarily looking for it. Others are more willing: Buyers are older and want to downsize.

"You don't need the five-bedroom house in the suburbs if you're an empty nester," said Steve Melman, director of economic services for the National Association of Home Builders.

Baldwin Park, a neotraditional community on the former Orlando Naval Training Center, promoted tiny and even nonexistent yards in a recent advertisement, promising to "sleek down your lifestyle." At Avalon Park, a neotraditional community in east Orange County, 25 percent of the 3,400 "single-family" homes are actually town homes.

Meanwhile, in the years since a developer took a decaying mall and turned the site into a bustling shopping, dining, entertainment and residential district, other areas have tried to duplicate Winter Park Village's success.

Uptown Altamonte is hailed by many as a model of how redevelopment should work, with more than 500 condos and apartments, plus shops and restaurants, surrounding scenic Cranes Roost Lake.

"It's a much better, efficient use of land," Seminole County Commissioner Randy Morris said.

Packing 'em in

Urban planners are pushing for more dense development, saying it makes sense to pack people in one place and leave other areas open for preservation.

In Seminole County, the third-densest county in Florida based on the number of people per square mile, officials want to increase densities, including building height, along aging U.S. Highway 17-92 to encourage development.

At the same time, they want to leave much of eastern Seminole rural, with one home on several acres instead of one acre with several homes.

Seminole officials also have toyed with the concept of allowing developers slightly higher density in exchange for land preservation. In a 620-acre tract south of Sanford and northwest of Lake Jesup, developers can go from one to two units an acre if they follow the concept of an "urban conservation village," concentrating homes in one section of a development while leaving open space elsewhere. In the Heatherwood subdivision, the first one approved under that concept, many lots are smaller than a fifth of an acre.

In east Orange County, plans call for converting 851 acres into a mixed-use development that could support as many as 8,500 homes and apartments by 2020. It would be in an area where planners want to create a high-tech corridor called Innovation Way. In some spots, if mass transit is available, there could be as many as 100 units per acre.

Environmentalists object, saying too many homes will be built before mass transit and jobs can be guaranteed. They also say 64 acres that would be preserved as open space are not enough.

"It has lots of plants and animals in there that are quite diverse," said Marge Holt, conservation chairwoman of the Central Florida Sierra Club. "That whole Innovation Way corridor would be a lovely piece to preserve, but that's not going to happen."

Some say there's also a social price to be paid for cramming people so close together.

"You put too many rats in a cage and they start fighting," said William Allin Storrer, who has written books on the architect who envisioned the community with one-acre lots -- Frank Lloyd Wright.

Sandra Pedicini can be reached at spedicini@orlandosentinel.com or 407-322-7669.

Would drilling in Gulf pay off?

The Senate is set to weigh energy needs vs. risks to nature.

Mark K. Matthews
Washington Bureau

July 31, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Faced with record-high gasoline prices and an unstable Middle East, the U.S. Senate this week will be looking at the eastern Gulf of Mexico for relief.

How much relief is debatable.

Experts warn that the energy reserves beneath the Gulf would do virtually nothing to quench the nation's thirst for oil -- much less ease its reliance on foreign imports.

But the Gulf's vast reserves of natural gas are a much different story.

By some estimates, one tract of 8.3 million acres targeted for drilling by the Senate has enough natural gas to cool and heat 6 million homes for 15 years.

Congress will have to weigh this benefit against the potential harm from an offshore environmental accident -- or a deep-sea spill that could damage Florida's multibillion-dollar tourism industry.

For now, though, lawmakers -- including Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida -- seem satisfied that they have built in enough protections to warrant a major expansion of oil and gas leases off U.S. waters.

3 drilling plans

In Washington, the choice has taken three forms.

The first is a plan passed by the U.S. House in June that would end a quarter-century of coastal protections. The House bill would expand coastal drilling around the entire continental United States and establish a 50-mile buffer zone.

States would have the option of extending that drilling barrier to 100 miles or reducing it to a few miles.

The second is the proposal likely to pass the Senate this week. Much narrower than the House's plan, this measure would maintain longstanding offshore protections and open up drilling only in 8.3 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico. And key for Florida, it would keep rigs 125 miles or farther off the state's shoreline.

If congressional efforts fail, the U.S. Department of the Interior would act on its own blueprint next summer. Interior would allow new drilling in 2 million acres of the Gulf and guarantee a 100-mile buffer for Florida.

The hope associated with each plan is to give the United States more control over its energy supply.

Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist, touting the Senate bill, said it would "make America more energy-independent, reduce our reliance on foreign oil [and] strengthen our national security."

But analysts who study energy policy, and even advocates from the drilling industry, said the Tennessee Republican was overreaching. Drilling in the Gulf would provide only momentary relief -- if that -- from the world oil market, they said.

"It's not true. It's not possible. In a way, it's political hype," said Robert Ebel, who studies energy issues at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. "He [Frist] is telling the American consumer what they want to hear. It's unlikely that the United States will ever be energy-independent."

What's underneath?

The Gulf area targeted in the Senate plan is thought to contain about 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and about 1.25 billion barrels of oil.

While the natural-gas supply is abundant, the oil reserves amount to very little; the U.S. consumes 21 million barrels every day.

According to federal estimates, the Gulf supply of oil would last only a couple months -- which is why the House wants to explore the entire U.S. coastline for fossil fuels.

When the scope of the two plans in Congress is considered, the differences become staggering:

The Senate wants to limit the expansion of drilling to 8.3 million acres in the Gulf.

The House's plan would allow drilling in about 356 million of the 611 million acres currently off-limits to rigs in the continental U.S.

The vast stores of energy reserves in the Gulf, especially southwest of the Florida Panhandle, are one reason the Senate wants to focus drilling efforts there. Last week, Sen. Pete Domenici, chairman of the Senate energy committee, said drilling there is imperative to America's energy future.

"This piece of real estate owned by the American people has more natural gas and crude oil on it than any piece of property owned by the government of the United States," said Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico.

Advocates for the energy companies agree with Domenici and call the entire eastern Gulf very energy-rich.

Call for more exploration

They also question the validity of the government's estimates on the amount of oil and gas beneath the floor of the Gulf. If energy companies were allowed to explore these areas, they say, new technology could uncover even greater reservoirs.

It's why the government should allow exploration off every coastline of the country, said Mark Stultz, spokesman for the Natural Gas Supply Association.

There could be an unknown, hidden supply, he said.

One of the strongest backers of extended offshore exploration is John Peterson, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. Peterson said skyrocketing energy prices have hurt not only consumers -- who rely on natural gas to heat and cool their homes -- but also American businesses.

Still, the abundant natural-gas supplies of America's trading partners are one reason the United States is not under pressure to produce its own supply of natural gas, said one defense and energy analyst.

"Our chief source of natural gas is Canada. I don't think we're in danger of having a bad relationship with Canada soon," said Theresa Sabonis-Helf, a professor at the National War College, based in Washington, D.C.

Last year, Canada exported 3.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to the United States, far and away the most of any country, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Sabonis-Helf, who focuses on defense and energy issues, said the best way to achieve energy security is conservation. "Getting rising consumption under control would do more for United States security than creating new supplies," she said.

It's a viewpoint echoed by environmentalists, who contend offshore drilling doesn't help either the economy or the ocean's ecosystem.

Mark Ferrulo, director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group, said offshore platforms release tons of toxins into the air and sea.

Plus, any oil spill near Florida could be especially harmful to the state's shoreline, environmentalists say.

"I don't think feeding our addiction to oil is in the best interest of national security," Ferrulo said. "No amount of drilling off Florida's coast -- or any coast -- will lessen our dependence on foreign oil."

Mark K. Matthews can be reached at mmatthews@orlandosentinel.com or 202-824-8222.

Planners to unveil highway options

Lake residents can offer input Tuesday about Wekiva Parkway, bypass routes

Martin E. Comas
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 31, 2006

MOUNT DORA -- Watching from the front window of his Sorrento pizza business, Brian Kirstein sees trucks and cars whizzing by on State Road 46 and County Road 437.

More traffic seems to travel those roads every day, he said. That's why Kirstein considers the proposed Wekiva Parkway a good thing for Sorrento.

It should bring many new customers to his business, The Pizza Place. And it might ease much of the traffic congesting the heart of this east Lake County community.

"Look at it right now," he said, pointing out the window as a large truck rumbled by. "This area hasn't been set up to handle the traffic it is receiving now. And with all the commercial traffic and all the homes coming in [in east Lake County], something has to give in."

Like many east Lake residents, Kirstein has strong opinions about the $1.7 billion toll road that has been proposed to complete a high-speed loop in Central Florida. Specifically, the expressway is designed to connect State Road 429 in Apopka to Interstate 4 in Sanford, for a beltway around the metro Orlando area.

Also planned is a S.R. 46 bypass, connecting the parkway with U.S. Highway 441 in Mount Dora.

On Tuesday anyone interested in the project and its impact will have a chance to comment.

Transportation officials are scheduled to present plans for the parkway, the bypass and proposals for a new interchange at U.S. 441 and S.R. 46, during a public hearing from 5 to 8 p.m. at Lake Receptions, 4425 N. County Road 19A, in Mount Dora.

The planned Wekiva Parkway and S.R. 46 bypass are years away from being built. Exact routes have not been nailed down yet. But Tuesday's hearing, the last of three public meetings, will help planners decide the placement of the roadways.

More than 340 people attended the first meeting in Seminole County on Tuesday, and about 375 people were at the Orange County hearing on Wednesday, transportation officials said.

Several miles west of Kirstein's business, Mount Dora officials also are interested in the new road designs.

Their main concern is how rebuilding the U.S. 441-S.R. 46 interchange will affect the city's east side.

"This roadway is going to be really important to the future growth of Mount Dora in that area," council member Melissa DeMarco said. "I hope that residents and business owners let their elected officials know their thoughts on this issue."

By 2032, about 73,000 cars will travel every day on U.S. 441 at S.R. 46, according to planners. That's more than three times the number of cars passing through the intersection today.

About half that traffic in 2032 will use the planned bypass. Planners with CH2M HILL, a consulting firm representing the state Department of Transportation and the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority, said the intersection, as it stands today, could not handle that much traffic and needs to be rebuilt.

At Tuesday's hearing, planners will show several interchange proposals, including ones that show "flyover" designs leading southbound traffic on U.S. 441 onto the S.R. 46 bypass.

Mount Dora officials like current designs that show the bypass connecting with the parkway east of Round Lake Road. That would lead traffic into an area the city and Lake County have agreed should be developed as a professional employment center, with businesses such as medical offices and research parks.

"I was happy to see that," DeMarco said.

Martin E. Comas can be reached at mcomas@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5927.

Builders innovate to save energy

Green technology is being used to build new headquarters for the county's agricultural extension service. It's more expensive but conservationists like it.

By ASJYLYN LODER
Published July 31, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Hernando County may soon get its first "green" government building.

The county's agricultural extension service, which is slated to replace its crumbling headquarters on the south side of Brooksville, plans to build its new offices using recycled materials, as well as landscape and engineering innovations designed to save water and energy, said Donna Peacock, director of the extension service.

Environmentally sustainable buildings are becoming an increasingly popular way to cut energy costs as oil prices continue to climb. Throughout the nation and in Florida, local governments are building "green" libraries, schools, fire stations, police departments and administration buildings.

"Green is not a fad," Peacock said. "I think it's fast becoming a wise business decision for local and state governments."

Peacock plans to use recycled building materials, install a donated solar hot water heater, plant "Florida friendly" landscaping that uses less water, and equip the building with energy-efficient windows, zoned air conditioning and motion-detecting lights.

While energy-efficient buildings can save money in the long run, short-term costs can be prohibitively high, said county budget director George Zoettlein.

"There's payback, but the payback is over the 30-year period," he said.

Peacock initially asked for $5-million for the new headquarters, but managed to pare down costs to $3.2-million by agreeing to a smaller building. She also agreed to complete the construction in phases, with only $1.7-million set aside in next year's budget.

Given the cost, she might have to forgo some of the expensive, eco-friendly upgrades, Zoettlein said. He's hoping she can borrow designs from other green buildings and have some of the construction materials donated.

Some of the green measures - like the energy-efficient windows and air-conditioning - do cost more, Peacock said. But other features, like recycled building materials and light timers, aren't necessarily more expensive, she said. She's also looking for grants to help offset construction costs.

"It's a great idea; we're just going to have to be practical in how we do it," said County Administrator Gary Kuhl.

Pat Fagan, the county's parks and recreation director, oversees county facilities, including what the county spends to heat and cool buildings. He didn't have exact numbers Friday, but said, "I can tell you that fuel costs have increased drastically in the last year."

For that reason, the county has already started to look at fuel-efficient technologies to help reduce costs, Fagan said. "In the future, we will be looking at every option that we possibly can to conserve energy," he said.

Kuhl agreed, but said that short-term increase in construction costs will have to be weighed against the long-term energy savings. "We need to consider this in any future building. It's just balancing costs with any new approach."

Local governments in Gainesville, Miami-Dade County and Sarasota County are already going green, Peacock pointed out. The University of Florida has also invested in sustainable buildings.

In 2004, Chicago committed to constructing all new city buildings using green technology. The "Chicago Standard," as it is known, has been applied to the planning or building of 11 libraries, six fire stations, five police stations and four public schools, among other public buildings, said Larry Merritt, spokesman for the city's Department of Environment. The buildings help preserve the environment, reduce air pollution and save energy costs, he said.

Sustainable measures used in the building of Chicago's Center for Green Technology include a planted roof that helps cool the building in summer and insulate it in winter, timed lights, a passive solar heating system and a cistern that catches rainwater and uses it to irrigate the grounds, according to its Web site.

Peacock hoped that her building, which will be built on the current site near the Hernando County Fairgrounds, will become a "living laboratory" where local homeowners and builders can learn about sustainable innovations. Construction on the new building, which will include classrooms and offices, is scheduled to begin in 2007.

She pointed to Hernando's recent water restrictions, blackouts in St. Louis and New York, and record-setting heat waves throughout the country as reasons for Hernando to start conserving.

"I just think it makes sense right now to build green."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Asjylyn Loder can be reached at aloder@sptimes.com or 352754-6127

Scientist challenges Florida agency's stance on red tide

By PHIL DAVIS
Associated Press Writer

ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A scientist is challenging a state report that says there is no clear evidence that toxic red tide is on the rise in the waters off southwest Florida.

"Red tide is more abundant," said Larry Brand, a professor of marine biology at the University of Miami. "You can count on it getting worse."

Brand was part of a panel that spoke Sunday to about 170 people at a Sierra Club red tide community forum on St. Pete Beach.

A recent study by Florida's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute found data collected between 1954 and 2006 was too scattered to show a trend in red tides.

Brand said he was able to filter the results and document an increase in nutrients off Florida shores that has fed a 14-fold increase in red tides since the 1950s.

He said the most likely source of the increase is the state's fast-growing human population, who are dumping increasing amounts of sewage, fertilizer and other nutrients into Florida's waters.

Cynthia Heil, a senior research scientist and harmful algae bloom group leader at the institute, disputes Brand's analysis. Nutrients also come from natural sources and there is no evidence of a single source contributing to increased red tide in Florida, she said.

"We really can't analyze the data," Heil said. "Are we seeing an increase in red tide? We can't really tell from this data set."

Red tide is formed when a microscopic algae reproduces at an explosive rate. The algae produces a neurotoxin that can paralyze or make breathing difficult for fish, manatees or even humans that inhale or ingest it.

Florida was hammered by a record red tide bloom in 2005. Officials said the financial impact of the 2005 red tide, which expanded at one point cover to about 25,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, is impossible to estimate. Estimates ran from $49 million to $240 million in the Tampa Bay area alone.

Frank Muller-Karger, a professor of oceanography at the University of South Florida, said the red tide this year is less severe. But he said the federal and state governments must devise and pay for a comprehensive study of the problem.

"There is not one technique that is going to work this out," he said. "I understand the state of Florida is putting some money into this. But the federal government has actually shrunk in terms of red tide funding. We need to fund the science."

Scientists are now tracking a red tide bloom off southwestern Florida between Sarasota and Collier counties. Dead fish are washing up on some beaches. Some people are complaining of respiratory distress caused by red tide. In July, eleven people in Lee County were hospitalized after contracting neurological shellfish poisoning from scallops they picked illegally from red tide-contaminated waters.

Some southwest Florida business owners, who saw the 2005 tourist season ruined by thousands of dead fish washing up on Florida beaches, want action now.

"I get the impression they're moving forward, but very slowly," said Lenne Nicklaus-Ball, vice president of the Sirata Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach. "When they say we can't prove this and we can't say that, they're not giving us the answers we need. The state of Florida needs to wake up."

Brand said Florida can't afford to wait for a perfect answer.

"When you're dealing with a complex ecosystem, there is no such thing as absolute proof," he said. "If you do something now, it will take years to see the effects."

Runoff seen as a key to red tide

Scientists at a Sunday forum say nearly everyone adds to the problem.

ST. PETE BEACH -- The people responsible for feeding red tide blooms could include almost everyone in Florida, from developers to farmers to backyard gardeners.

That was one theme that arose during a scientific forum Sunday attended by top researchers who study the algal blooms and their causes.

The nutrients that feed red tide, and the sources of those nutrients, were one topic discussed by scientists, environmentalists and government officials who attended the Sierra Club public forum at the Sirata Beach Resort on Sunday.

Nutrients are the compounds -- mostly nitrogen and phosphorus -- that algae need to grow.

On a day when the adjacent beach had no red tide and looked more welcoming than the inside of a hotel ballroom, about 200 people turned out to discuss red tide, which kills sea life and fouls the air in areas where it is present.

Most forum attendees wanted answers to the nutrient question, with a focus on how pollution might affect red tide and how controlling it might help reduce red tide blooms.

They learned that their yards and golf courses, cars and boats are part of the problem.

Agreement was reached among scientists who've sparred in scientific journals and workshops over how land-based nutrients might affect the life of a bloom.

The four researchers from different institutions and disciplines said that among the things that feed red tide blooms are the nutrients coming from runoff, and that cleaning up that runoff is a good idea.

The talk also turned to roofs and roads, and how the paving of land increases the amount and speed of run-off into the state waters.

While many other things probably help feed the algal blooms -- upwellings from the deep ocean, and other algae that make nutrients -- humans have control over only one, said Frank Muller-Karger, a researcher at the University of South Florida and a former member of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy.

"It's clear we can control some of the discharge from land," Muller-Karger said.

According to the Florida Department of Agriculture, farmers, landscapers and home gardeners last year bought 2 million tons of fertilizer.

The forum also delivered a few "take home" lessons for a practical approach to red tide -- that asthmatics should stay off the beach during blooms and pets should be kept from eating fish killed by red tide because the toxin remains potent long after fish die.

In the first case, researchers have found that asthmatics tend to suffer more during red tides and that asthma drugs can help when the disease is aggravated by a bloom.

Beachgoers were on Barbara Kirkpatrick's mind.

Kirkpatrick, a researcher at Mote Marine Laboratory, studies the effect of red tide on human health.

"About 10 percent of them have asthma, and I have concerns about those people sitting on that beach," she said.

Some scientists pointed out that they've made great strides understanding the complex Karenia brevis and tracking it.

Cindy Heil, head red tide researcher at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said the organism is slow-growing but at times can outcompete other algae for nutrients in the water.

She said researchers are on the verge of new technologies that will help spot and track red tide, an effort that will give better answers to what causes the blooms and what might make them worse.

Kissimmee River project in 2nd phase

Daphne Sashin
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 31, 2006

Navigation on part of the Kissimmee River on the Okeechobee-Highlands county line will be interrupted for 18 months as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers undertakes the second phase of a $578-million river-restoration project.

Today, crews will begin filling another 1.5 miles of the 56-mile canal dredged by the corps in the 1960s as a flood-control project. Navigation will be blocked on a roughly five-mile stretch of the river until Oct. 31, 2007, between the Avon Park Air Force Range boat ramp and a point two miles south of Weir 1. A weir is a low dam.

The first phase of construction, to fill in seven miles of the channel, began in 1999 and was finished in 2001.

Scheduled for completion in four phases by 2012, the restoration project will return flow to 43 miles of the river's historic, meandering path. Besides providing habitat for hundreds of species of fish and wildlife, the wetlands that are re-created along the river will help filter out pollutants now carried to Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.

The work requires the corps to fill in 22 miles of the canal with soil dug out between 1962 and 1971, recarve nine miles of river channel and blow up two of the water-control structures that regulate water levels.

The restoration project has gained worldwide attention, say officials with the South Florida Water Management District. It is one of four finalists for the 2006 International Thiess River prize award for excellence in river and waterway management. The other finalists are Lake Macquarie in Australia, South Saskatchewan River in Canada and Sha River in China. The prize, worth about $173,000, will be awarded in September at a ceremony in Brisbane, Australia.

Daphne Sashin can be reached at dsashin@orlandosentinel.com or 407-931-5944.

Joy Marks' company, B and B Interiors, works with rental properties converting to condos. Owners were compelled to switch because rents could no longer cover spiraling insurance costs.

Now, the converted properties face another dilemma: Owners can't afford insurance or, worse yet, can't find a company willing to write a policy even at exorbitant costs.

''Properties that we were working on from Orlando to Broward have stopped doing conversions. Nothing is selling,'' says Marks, who also has had to cope with rising assessments to cover higher insurance costs for her homeowners association in Bonaventure.

In recent months, Florida's insurance crisis has mushroomed, spreading quickly from homeowners unable to cope with soaring rates to businesses facing policy cancellations, dwindling coverage and out-of-this-world costs if they can find insurance at all.

Hardest hit are small- and medium-size businesses, the backbone of South Florida's regional economy. They are faced with a tough choice: Raise prices and risk losing customers or absorb costs they hadn't anticipated.

Some businesses are near default on loans because required insurance isn't available. Expansion plans are on hold or eliminated. Some real estate sales, both commercial and residential, are grinding to a halt.

We brought together a group of lawmakers, a regulator, insurance agents and business and consumer leaders, including Marks, for a roundtable discussion on the crisis, its impact and possible solutions.

The issue was so broad we divided it into two parts. Sunday we focused on the homeowner crisis in Issues & Ideas (and on www.Herald.com). Today in Business Monday we are looking at the commercial crisis.

What you will find on the next three pages are edited excerpts from the nearly two-hour conversation, arranged by topic. The transcript of the entire conversation is on www.MiamiHerald.com.

The stakes are very high. If nothing is done, as panelist Heather Carruthers said, ``We're going to lose the whole fabric of South Florida.''

Development plan doesn't square with neighbors

By KARI COBHAM
Staff Writer

DELAND -- Just two miles west of quaint downtown DeLand, a controversial development storm is sweeping through century-old yellow pines.

Soon Pelham Square -- a 200-home, 1920s-styled community with porches and picket fences -- will spread across a 56-acre historic district between Old New York Avenue and the Amtrak station.

With backing from the Volusia County Council, design and construction of the cluster of town- and single-family homes is kicking into gear amid protests from nearby residents.

"We're not necessarily opposed to this development, we're opposed to increased density," said Harley Bessire of the Hontoon Area Civic Association.

The five-year Lake Beresford Road resident shared concerns with other residents that the area cannot handle a population increase brought about by this and future development.

"If you've made the decision to make this area urban, make a decision to increase (the number of) schools and roads and (other) infrastructure," Bessire said.

Designed by the architects behind Orlando's Celebration and Baldwin Park and developed by Crosland, Pelham Square has been dubbed the area's first "new urbanist" community.

But it's deeply rooted in area history, having been revived by the North Carolina-based developer from failed plans in the 1920s to create a gateway to DeLand.

Supporters hope a planned commuter-rail system along existing CSX tracks -- chugging through Volusia, Seminole, Osceola and Orange counties -- will justify the increased density.

"You've got to plan for that in advance so you have the people there when the commuter rail comes in to attract more people to use it," said Volusia County Chairman Frank Bruno.

The project should set new ideas in motion about "walkable" communities to mass transit, said Perry Reader, president of Crosland's Florida division.

Meanwhile, opponents like Bessire question the certainty of commuter rail in the near future.

But commissions from the four counties are committed to making the rail happen with a shared initial investment of $500 million, Bruno said. Volusia County was one of the first to show interest with an $11 million investment, he said.

"The secret to mass transit is you need to have people there to use it, otherwise it becomes difficult to commute in Florida," Reader said.

CSX is now in discussion with the state about sale of the tracks for use as commuter-rail, but nothing has been finalized, said Meg Scheu, media relations specialist for the transportation company.

Walter Bennett has lived on Hontoon Road for five years and describes the neighborhood as quiet.

"We would not be opposed to any development as long as it isn't maximum density," he said. "The density is what we're against, not the advancement."

To deal with this bone of contention, Bruno said growth management and county planners are addressing ways to set the groundwork for expected growth.

The Volusia County School Board approved an agreement Tuesday with project developers, who will contribute funds based on the number of units built and their impact on the area, said Patricia Drago, executive director of facilities. It will supplement funding of the new institutions drawn from local sales tax dollars.

The board plans to begin construction on a new area high school this year and land has already been acquired for an elementary school.

But the institutions will funnel students from area schools already over capacity. Whether they can meet the needs of new families expected in the next few years remains to be seen.

Bessire expects that Pelham Square will set a precedent for future development and continued change.

"Is rural Volusia County ready to become downtown Orlando?" questioned Taver Cornett, a planning commission member who voted against the development.

Reader contended that Crosland was committed to attracting a diverse community while keeping the area's historic character intact.

"We certainly support their initiative to keep that area as rural as it should be," he said. "It's a pretty area."

With rezoning behind them, Crosland expects to wrap up planning and begin construction by mid-2007, said Dean Barberee, vice president of development. Homes will go on the market at the end of 2008 with project completion estimated by 2010.

"These decisions are going to get made and we have to live with them and hope for the best," Bessire said.

kari.cobham@news-jrnl.com

Gore makes personal environmental appeal

By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. (AP) -- Former Vice President Al Gore said his conscience is regularly challenged by a consumerism that contributes to the global warming he has made it his mission to reverse.

"It is so hard for those of us who want to live according to our values," Gore said Monday at the Chautauqua Institution, during the latest in a series of lectures he has given on global warming.

"We're embedded in a culture that makes it so easy to just go with the flow and support a pattern that's horribly destructive," he said. "And so we need to address this personally."

Gore first lectured on global warming at the western New York think tank in 1990. Since then, the consensus that the planet is in crisis has grown stronger, he said, and the ability to make the point is not cluttered by campaign issues like the economy and health care.

"This is by far the most serious challenge that we face or have ever faced," he said during the 90-minute appearance. "None of the other ones will matter if we don't get this right."

Later, Gore planned to sign copies of his book, "An Inconvenient Truth." The related documentary film was being shown on campus.

Dressed in a navy suit and tie and occasionally wandering from his podium, Gore showed the packed house dozens of slides to make his point that human behavior, if not changed, would destroy the planet.

He pointed to the melting of glaciers and mountain ice caps, bleaching of coral reefs, strengthening of hurricanes and record numbers of tornadoes.

"We're playing with fire here and we have to act quickly," he said. "The good news is we can."

Flyers distributed to attendees urged them to use fluorescent light bulbs, drive less, plant a tree, recycle and avoid products with a lot of packaging to reduce carbon dioxide. Besides the 5,500 people in the auditorium, at least 200 people waited outside during his address.

Gore said he and his wife, Tipper, who was in the audience, had adopted a "carbon neutral lifestyle."

"We've fallen into this pattern of consuming more and more and more and I'm part of it, I understand," he said.

Scientists group fears more pollution

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bush administration plans to ease clean air rules for thousands of aging industrial plants might increase air pollution, the National Academy of Sciences said Friday.

Those Clean Air Act rules are under review by the Supreme Court, which is due to receive legal briefs on the administration's attempts to rewrite the rules in 2002 and 2003.

An NAS report requested by Congress said the possibility of emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide "increases in some locations and decreases in others. However, the magnitude of the changes and the number of geographic areas affected could not be assessed."

Those chemicals contribute to smog, acid rain, soot and other fine particles that lodge in people's lungs and cause asthma and other respiratory ailments.

The academy also implicitly criticized the Environmental Protection Agency's information gathering, saying "a lack of data and the limitations of current models" prevent anyone from drawing firm conclusions about how the rules might affect air pollution.

The EPA took a different view. Bill Wehrum, EPA's acting chief of its Office of Air and Radiation, said the report "confirms that the Bush administration's approach to reducing air pollution guarantees results" by allowing more companies to use a marketplace approach that features an emissions-trading plan.

Under a trading system - which has been promoted in the EPA's Clean Air Interstate Rule - plants unable to meet the required reductions could buy emission allowances from plants that have exceeded the required reductions.

EPA has said that approach would encourage more technology advances; environmentalists said they would compromise public health.

Under the Clean Air Act's "new source review" program - including the Bush administration's changes that Congress asked the academy to study - companies must first get a permit and possibly install anti-pollution controls before building or expanding facilities that could significantly foul the air.

For almost 30 years, the program has been viewed by proponents and opponents alike as too bureaucratic and complex. In 1999, President Clinton used it to sue owners of 51 coal-burning power plants. The Bush administration continued those cases, but rewrote the rules.

Some of the administration's 2002 changes were struck down by a federal court last year; the rest went into effect only in a few states. The 2003 revisions, affecting replaced equipment, was struck down by a court two years ago.

One case, involving Duke Energy Corp., based in Charlotte, N.C., is now before the Supreme Court. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled last year that power plants can spew more pollutants into the air when they modernize to operate for longer hours.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, representing power companies, said he viewed the report as "unqualified good news" because it shows more companies should be allowed to trade emission allowances.

The NAS advises the government on scientific and technological issues.

---

On the Net:

EPA: http://www.epa.gov/nsr

National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nasonline.org/

Report faults EPA on clean air regulation

By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is failing to reduce health risks from toxic air pollution as required by law, congressional investigators said Wednesday.

The Environmental Protection Agency has not met 30 percent of the Clean Air Act's requirements and regularly misses deadlines, they said.

EPA scientists issued their own report Wednesday, saying the agency should consider tightening its national health-based standards for smog-forming ozone to a level similar to California's, though not as restrictive as what the Swiss-based World Health Organization recommends. They said the risks of asthma and other respiratory ailments are greater than previously believed. EPA is under court order to propose a decision on this by next March.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the EPA largely has failed to regulate air pollutants from small sources, including dry cleaners and trucks. The GAO report said the EPA has not yet met 239 of the law's requirements; of those the agency did fulfill, only 12 were met on time.

"EPA has not reduced human health risks from air toxics to the extent and in the time frames envisioned in the Act," according to the report by the investigative arm of Congress.

The report was requested by nine senators - six Democrats, two Republicans and one independent - and six Democratic members of the House.

Separately, a panel set up by the U.S., Canada and Mexico reported Wednesday that pollution in North America fell by 15 percent from 1998 to 2003.

In 2003, the latest year for which figures were available, the total amount of pollution released or transferred elsewhere in North America was 3.3 million tons.

The top 10 chemicals emitted in the three nations were hydrochloric acid, methanol, sulfuric acid, hydrogen fluoride, toluene, styrene, xylenes, n-hexane, methyl ethyl ketone and carbon disulfide.

Some, such as toluene and xylenes, come from mobile sources, open burning or asphalt paving; hydrochloric acid and other chemicals come from coal-fired electric utilities.

Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent, and some Democrats said the GAO report shows the EPA is allowing people to be unlawfully exposed to health risks such as cancer, reproductive damage and birth defects.

"This report confirms that EPA has abdicated its responsibility to protect our citizens from dangerous, cancer-causing pollutants," Jeffords said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the report shows that "virtually all Americans face an increased risk of cancer from breathing toxic air pollution, yet EPA refuses to carry out the Clean Air Act's mandates, leaving everyone exposed to unnecessary cancer risks."

Agency officials said the EPA and the Bush administration are making progress. By next year, the EPA said, emissions of toxic air will have dropped by 57 percent from 1990 levels due to new standards affecting dozens of types of industrial facilities.

"Environmental progress is similar to a relay race with each administration passing the baton to the next," EPA spokeswoman Jessica Emond said. "The Bush administration completed one leg of the race, while accelerating environmental progress for future generations."

---

On the Net:

GAO report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06669.pdf

China's growing pollution reaches U.S.

By TERENCE CHEA
Associated Press Writer

MOUNT TAMALPAIS STATE PARK, Calif. (AP) -- On a mountaintop overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Steven Cliff collects evidence of an industrial revolution taking place thousands of miles away.

The tiny, airborne particles Cliff gathers at an air monitoring station just north of San Francisco drifted over the ocean from coal-fired power plants, smelters, dust storms and diesel trucks in China and other Asian countries.

Researchers say the environmental impact of China's breakneck economic growth is being felt well beyond its borders. They worry that as China consumes more fossil fuels to feed its energy-hungry economy, the U.S. could see a sharp increase in trans-Pacific pollution that could affect human health, worsen air quality and alter climate patterns.

"We're going to see increased particulate pollution from the expansion of China for the foreseeable future," said Cliff, a research engineer at the University of California, Davis.

He has monitoring stations on Mount Tamalpais, Donner Summit near Lake Tahoe, and Mount Lassen in far Northern California. Those sites see little pollution from local sources, and the composition of the dust particles matches that of the Gobi Desert and other Asian sites, Cliff said.

About a third of the Asian pollution is dust, which is increasing due to drought and deforestation, Cliff said. The rest is composed of sulfur, soot and trace metals from the burning of coal, diesel and other fossil fuels.

Cliff is studying whether transported particulate matter could affect climate by trapping heat, reflecting light or changing rainfall patterns.

Most air pollution in U.S. cities is generated locally, but that could change if citizens in China, India and other developing nations adopt American-style consumption patterns, researchers say.

"If they started driving cars and using electricity at the rate in the developed world, the amount of pollution they generate will increase many, many times," said Tony Van Curen, a UC Davis researcher who works with Cliff.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that on certain days nearly 25 percent of the particulate matter in the skies above Los Angeles can be traced to China. Some experts predict China could one day account for a third of all California's air pollution.

Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, said he has detected ozone, carbon monoxide, mercury and particulate matter from Asia at monitoring sites on Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Cheeka Peak in Washington state.

"There is some amount of the pollution in the air we breathe coming from halfway around the world," Jaffe said. "There ultimately is no 'away.' There is no place where you can put away your pollution anymore."

China's environmental problems are severe and getting worse. Nearly 30 years of relentless industrial expansion has fouled the country's rivers, lakes, forests, farmland and skies.

The World Bank estimates that 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China, and air pollution is blamed for about 400,000 premature deaths there each year.

Coal-fired power plants supply two-thirds of China's energy and are its biggest source of air pollution. Already the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, China on average builds a new coal-fired power plant every week.

Meanwhile, car ownership is soaring as the country's economy grows about 10 percent a year, contributing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

If current trends continue, China will surpass the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the next decade, said Barbara Finamore, who heads the Natural Resources Defense Council's China Clean Energy program, which is helping the country boost its energy efficiency.

"China's staggering economic growth is an environmental time bomb that, unless defused, threatens to convulse the entire planet regardless of progress in all other nations," Finamore said.

Even Chinese environmental officials warn that pollution levels could quadruple over the next 15 years if the country doesn't curb energy use and emissions. Beijing plans to spend $162 billion on environmental cleanup over the next five years, but the scale of the country's pollution problems is immense.

"When you look at China's population growth and industrial growth, it's hard to imagine how air quality could improve in the near future," said Ruby Leung, a researcher at the Energy Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., which collaborates with Chinese government scientists on atmospheric research.

Earlier this year, Leung and her colleagues published a study that found particulate pollution has darkened China's skies over the past 50 years by absorbing and deflecting the sun's rays.

China's pollution also regularly dirties the air in neighboring South Korea and Japan, but until recently researchers didn't think it had much effect on North America.

U.S. scientists have recently found that Asian pollution is consistently transported across the Pacific on air currents. It can take anywhere from five days to two weeks for particles to cross the ocean.

Some scientists predict that global warming could change those circulation patterns, either speeding or slowing the transport of pollutants from Asia.

China's environmental challenges are daunting, but the country is taking action to reduce its energy use and air pollution, said NRDC's Finamore. Beijing has set ambitious goals for increasing energy efficiency, fuel economy standards and use of renewable power sources such as wind and solar, she said.

"There are tremendous opportunities for China to slow the amount of pollution it pumps in the air," Finamore said.

Parched Dakotas Wither Into 'Wasteland'

By JAMES MacPHERSON The Associated Press

Published: Jul 30, 2006

STEELE, N.D. - Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds.

Some ranchers have been forced to sell their herds, and others are moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment.

"These 100-degree days for weeks steady have been burning everything up," said Steele Mayor Walter Johnson, who said he would prefer 2 feet of snow over the weather.

Farm ponds and other small bodies of water have dried out from the heat, leaving the residual alkali dust to be whipped up by the wind. The blowing dirt-and-salt mixture is a phenomenon that hasn't been seen in south-central North Dakota since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, Johnson said.

Most Of Nation Suffering

More than 60 percent of the United States has abnormally dry or drought conditions, stretching from Georgia to Arizona and across the north through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, said Mark Svoboda, a climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

An area stretching from south central North Dakota to central South Dakota is the most drought-stricken region in the nation, Svoboda said.

"It's the epicenter," he said. "It's just like a wasteland in north central South Dakota."

Conditions aren't much better a little farther north. Paul Smokov and his wife, Betty, raise several hundred cattle on their 1,750-acre ranch north of Steele, a town of about 760 people.

North Dakota's all-time high temperature - 121 - was set here in July 1936. Smokov, now 81, remembers that time and thinks conditions this summer probably are worse.

"I could see this coming in May," Smokov said of the parched pastures and wilted crops. "That's the time the good Lord gives us our general rains. But we never got them this year."

Brad Rippey, a federal Agriculture Department meteorologist in Washington, said this year's drought is continuing one that started in the late 1990s. "The 1999 to 2006 drought ranks only behind the 1930s and the 1950s. It's the third-worst drought on record - period," he said.

Svoboda was reluctant to say how bad this drought might become.

"We'll have to wait to see how it plays out - but it's definitely bad," he said. "And the drought seems to not be going anywhere soon."

Herman Schumacher, who owns Herreid Livestock Auction in north-central South Dakota, said his company is handling more sales than ever because of the drought.

In May, June and July 2005, his company sold 3,800 cattle. During the same months this year, more than 27,000 cattle have been sold, he said.

"I've been in the barn here for 25 years, and I can't even compare this year to any other year," Schumacher said.

He said about 50 ranchers have run cows through his auction this year.

"Some of them just trimmed off their herds, but about a third of them were complete dispersions - they'll never be back," he said.

"This county is looking rough. These 100-degree days are just killing us," said Gwen Payne, a North Dakota State University extension agent in Kidder County, which includes Steele.

It's The Only Industry Here

The Agriculture Department says North Dakota last year led the nation in production of 15 commodity classes, including spring wheat, durum wheat, barley, oats, canola, pinto beans, dry edible peas, lentils, flaxseed, sunflower and honey.

North Dakota State University professor Larry Leistritz said it's too early to tell what this year's drought will do to commodity prices. Flour prices already have gone up and may go higher because of the effect of drought on wheat.

"There will be somewhat higher grain prices, no doubt about it," Leistritz said. "With livestock, the short-term effect may mean depressed meat prices, with a larger number of animals being sent to slaughter. But in the longer run, it may prolong the period of relatively high meat prices."

Eventually, more than farmers could suffer.

"Agriculture is not only the biggest industry in the state, it's just about the only industry," Leistritz said. "Communities live or die with the fortunes of agriculture."

Susie White, who runs the Lone Steer motel and restaurant in Steele, along Interstate 94, said even out-of-state travelers notice the drought.

"Even I never paid attention to the crops around here. But I notice them now because they're not there," she said.

"We're all wondering how we're going to stay alive this winter if the farmers don't make any money this summer," she said.

WEATHERING THE DRY SPELL

Visit the National Drought Mitigation Center online at drought.unl.edu to learn how to prepare for and deal with drought conditions.

KILLER BEES Buzz The Heartland

By NANCY VICKERS-PYLE
npyle@highlandstoday.com

LAKE PLACID - Killer bees have made a little honey in Highlands County, as they have in some 20 counties in the state.

The state’s bee inspector destroyed two colonies of the bad bees west of Lake Placid in May 2005.

Officially, killer bees are called African honey bees, earning the killer nickname for their aggressive nature. The sting itself has no more bite, no more venom than any other flying bug.

“Any bee, wasp, yellow jacket, hornet can be a killer if you’re allergic to the sting. One bee, one bite can kill somebody and someone else might survive 1,000 bites,” said Glenn Eroh, an Avon Park bee keeper.

John Bastianelli is the bee inspector for the state of Florida Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industries, who “depopulated” the two colonies that weren’t anywhere near homes.

“There haven’t been any confirmed reports since then,” he said.

Bastianelli investigates reports of problem bees in this part of Florida and said the number of problem bee calls has increased this month.

“I’ve had 40 calls in a month. About a dozen calls this week.” Bastianelli said Thursday. Most of the time the calls are false alarms.

Eroh said, “It’s a buggy year. There’s a better nectar flow than usual. The bees are reproducing more than other years because there is a better food source.”

Eroh worries that people will panic and want all bees gone.

“People ask me all the time if I have killer bees on my truck,” he said, pointing to the empty box hives strapped to the back of his diesel truck.

Bastianelli thinks Highlands County is fortunate since LaBelle had about 40 colonies confirmed and destroyed.

The colonies that were destroyed here were discovered when suspect bees found their way into special African bee traps filled with a special bait that attracts the killer bee.

The suspect bees are sent to a state lab in Gainesville and are DNA tested.

Once the bees are found positive of the African strain, the area around the bee trap is searched until the colony is found and destroyed.

“We go out about in the dark and treat it with insecticide,” Bastianelli said.

Bastianelli said there are traps all over the state that are constantly monitored. Those near the state’s ports are monitored as often as every few days.

He said the killer bees constantly come into the state at the ports on container ships bearing imports so the best way to track them is from that source.

“I killed a swarm in 1986,” in Florida, Bastianelli said.

“We have to deal with this. A bee keeper can work an entirehive of European honey bees and maybe get stung once or twice. If it were African bees the bee keeper would be stung 30, 50 maybe more times in the same time period.”

Killer NicknameAll is takes to stir up a colony of killer bees is the sound of an approaching diesel engine.

That aggression is the only clue because the African bee looks just like the domestic honey bee native to Europe.

“They look the same. The African bee might be slightly smaller but you can’t tell by looking at them,” said Eroh, who is a certified and licensed bee keeper.

Thursday, Eroh drove his diesel truck to one set hives that he maintains and harvests for a variety of honey. He has 500 hives scattered in pastures, stands of palmettos and in citrus groves near Avon Park and in Hardee County.

This particular group of hives is in various stages of producing palmetto honey, a rich, gold honey with a taste of its own. A field thick with palmettos is a stone’s throw away. Orange blossom honey is harvested from hives in orange groves.

Eroh uses a smoker to pump clouds into the hive before he touches them.

“The bees are afraid of the smoke. They aren’t afraid of you,” Eroh said.

The smoke alerts the bees that there might be a fire, and as a defense, the bees fill up on the honey in case they have to leave the hive. That makes them slower and more docile.

Eroh took a hive apart to show the bees use each box.

The boxes are the separate “rooms” that make up the “house.”

There is one queen for every hive.

The males or drones have only one purpose and that is to breed with the queen. Eroh said a bee only lives six weeks so the cycle of breeding, producing larvae and the rearing of baby bees into mature drones and the female workers is constant.

“Responsible bee keepers keep healthy colonies of bees,” Eroh said. That includes treating the colony for the Varroa mites, one of several parasites that can plague honey bees.

Well-managed hives actually deter African bees.

“If Africanized bees come into an area to forage and don’t find adequate food because of managed colonies in the area, they will move on,” according to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Eroh said that African bees are honey bees but their aggressive nature would make it impossible to harvest the honey.

“You don’t want the African bees. You can’t work with them,” Eroh.

He has been playing with bees since he was 17 but has been a full-time beekeeper for a half-dozen years now.

“I love what I do. I’ve done a lot of things. It’s a hot job but it’s a good job.”

Eroh hopes people won’t begin to fear all honey bees.

“We need honey bees,” he said. “They are an important part of the food supply Even lettuce has to be pollinated.

The StingIt’s sweltering outside. Even Eroh, who typically works outside, is drenched.

“A couple of hours of this can pretty much do you in,” Eroh said.

The bees are harmlessly buzzing about their six story condominium that a beekeeper calls a hive and the industry calls an apiary.

A stray bee investigates by buzzing around your head.

And even though you’re told that swatting at the bee isn’t going to work, the bee gets too close and reflexes take over.

The bee hits your cheek and a tiny knife pierces your sweaty skin and for several seconds, you wish you could run from that unique burning sensation.

Derrick Leeks described his bee bite experience as a “tingling.”

He delivers packages for UPS and he was working when he was stung.

“I was going up to a house with a package. I hit a hedge and they just came out of there. One of them got me right over my eye,” Leeks said.

Heath Todd said he’s been stung several times, once on his stomach.

“Wasps are the worst,” Todd said.

His father, Wayne Todd, remembered his brother Johnny being stung 16 times by wasps working in an old packing house in Avon Park.

“They say that tobacco is the best thing to put on a sting. But if you make a paste out of meat tenderizer, that really works to draw the poison out.”

Bee keeper Eroh Glenn goes about the job of checking his hives slowly, gracefully.

Quick moves tend to startle his honey bees.

“Honey bees tend to go for your face,” Eroh said.

They don’t seem to bother him at all.

“Oh they do. I get bit all the time. Sometimes you get done doing your work without a bite and then you get in the truck a one stings you right on the nose. But imagine that happening with African bees. It wouldn’t be just one or two bites,” Eroh said.

African honey bees were brought to Brazil in the 1950s for testing as possible alternatives to the gentle European honey bee because of their reputation for thriving in a tropical environment.

Some escaped, as it often happens, and the rest is history.

The state Department of Agriculture is combating the swarms of killer bees with bee traps, tests and destroying colonies when they are discovered.

The state also inspects apiaries, or bee farms and requires beekeepers to be licensed and certified.

Bastianelli said the state has also been working to educate firefighters, EMTs and emergency hospital staff, and other responders on how to emergencies linked to African bees.

*

Environmental damage sickens seas

Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angles Times

July 30, 2006

MORETON BAY, Australia -- The fireweed began each spring as tufts of hairy growth and spread across the seafloor fast enough to cover a football field in an hour.

When fishermen touched it, their skin broke out in searing welts. Their lips blistered and peeled. Their eyes burned and swelled shut. Water that splashed from their nets spread the inflammation to their legs and torsos.

"It comes up like little boils," said Randolph Van Dyk, a fisherman whose powerful legs are pocked with scars. "At nighttime, you can feel them burning. I tried everything to get rid of them. Nothing worked."

As the weed blanketed the bay during the past decade, it stained fishing nets a dark purple and left them coated with a powdery residue. When fishermen tried to shake it off the webbing, their throats constricted, leaving them gasping for air.

After one man bit a fishing line in two, his mouth and tongue swelled so badly that he couldn't eat solid food for a week. Others made an even more painful mistake, neglecting to wash the residue from their hands before relieving themselves over the sides of their boats.

For a time, embarrassment kept them from talking publicly about their condition. When they finally did speak up, authorities dismissed their complaints -- until a bucket of the hairy weed made it to the University of Queensland's marine-botany lab.

Samples placed in a drying oven gave off fumes so strong that professors and students ran out of the building and into the street, choking and coughing.

Scientist Judith O'Neil put a tiny sample under a microscope and peered at the long black filaments. Consulting a botanical reference, she identified the weed as a strain of cyanobacteria, an ancestor of modern-day bacteria and algae that flourished 2.7 billion years ago.

O'Neil, a biological oceanographer, was familiar with these ancient life forms but had never seen this particular kind before. What was it doing in Moreton Bay? Why was it so toxic? Why was it growing so fast?

'Rise of slime'

The venomous weed, known to scientists as Lyngbya majuscula, has appeared in at least a dozen other places around the globe. It is one of many symptoms of a virulent pox on the world's oceans.

In many places -- the atolls of the Pacific, the shrimp beds of the Eastern Seaboard, the fjords of Norway -- some of the most advanced forms of ocean life are struggling to survive while the most primitive are thriving and spreading. Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked.

Where this pattern is most pronounced, scientists evoke a scenario of evolution running in reverse, returning to the primeval seas of hundreds of millions of years ago.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson, a marine ecologist and paleontologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., says we are witnessing "the rise of slime."

For many years, it was assumed the oceans were too vast for humanity to damage in any lasting way. Even in modern times, when oil spills, chemical discharges and other industrial accidents heightened awareness of man's capacity to injure sea life, the damage was often regarded as temporary.

But during time, the accumulation of environmental pressures has altered the basic chemistry of the seas.

Industrial society is overdosing the oceans with basic nutrients -- the nitrogen, carbon, iron and phosphorous compounds that curl out of smokestacks and tailpipes, wash into the sea from fertilized lawns and cropland, seep out of septic tanks and gush from sewer pipes. These pollutants feed excessive growth of harmful algae and bacteria.

At the same time, overfishing and destruction of wetlands have diminished the competing sea life and natural buffers that once held the microbes and weeds in check.

Global phenomena

Evidence is surfacing around the globe.

Off the coast of Sweden each summer, blooms of cyanobacteria turn the Baltic Sea into a stinking, yellow-brown slush that locals call "rhubarb soup." Dead fish bob in the surf.

On the southern coast of Maui, high tide leaves piles of green-brown algae that smell so foul condominium owners have hired a tractor driver to scrape them off the beach every morning.

On Florida's Gulf Coast, residents complain that harmful algae blooms have become bigger, more frequent and longer-lasting. Toxins from these red tides have killed hundreds of sea mammals and caused emergency rooms to fill up with coastal residents suffering respiratory distress.

Organisms such as the fireweed that torments the fishermen of Moreton Bay have been around for eons. They emerged from the primordial ooze and came to dominate ancient oceans that were mostly lifeless. During time, higher forms of life gained supremacy.

Jackson, 63, who has spent a good part of his professional life underwater, uses a homespun analogy to illustrate what is happening. The world's 6 billion inhabitants, he says, have failed to follow a homeowner's rule of thumb: Be careful what you dump in the swimming pool, and make sure the filter is working.

"We're pushing the oceans back to the dawn of evolution," Jackson said, "a half-billion years ago when the oceans were ruled by jellyfish and bacteria."

In Australia, fishermen began noticing the fireweed about the time much of Moreton Bay started turning a dirty, tea-water brown after every rain. The wild growth smothered the bay's northern sea-grass beds, once abounding in fish and shellfish, under a blanket a yard thick.

After suffering painful skin lesions, fisherman Greg Savige took a sealed bag of the weed in 2000 to Barry Carbon, then director-general of the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency. He warned Carbon to be careful with it. Carbon replied that he knew all about cyanobacteria from western Australian waters and that there was nothing to worry about.

Then he opened the bag and held it to his nose.

"It was like smearing hot mustard on the lips," the chastened official recalled.

Each spring, Lyngbya bursts forth from spores on the seafloor and spreads in dark green-and-black braids. It flourishes for months before retreating into the muck. Scientists say it produces more than 100 toxins, probably as a defense mechanism.

At its peak in summer, the weed now covers as much as 30 square miles of Moreton Bay, an estuary about the size of San Francisco Bay.

William Dennison, then director of the University of Queensland botany lab, couldn't believe it at first.

"We checked this 20 times. It was mind-boggling. It was like 'The Blob,' " Dennison said, recalling the 1950s horror movie about an alien life form that consumed everything in its path.

Feeds on itself

Suspecting that nutrients from partially treated sewage might be the culprit, another Queensland University scientist, Peter Bell, collected some wastewater and put it in a beaker with a pinch of Lyngbya. The weed bloomed happily.

As Brisbane and the surrounding area became the fastest-growing region in Australia, millions of gallons of partially treated sewage gushed from 30 wastewater-treatment plants into the bay and its tributary rivers. Officials upgraded the sewage plants to enable them to remove nitrogen from the wastewater, but it did not stop the growth of the infernal weed.

Researchers began looking for other sources of Lyngbya's nutrients and are now investigating whether iron and possibly phosphorous are being freed from soil as forests of eucalyptus and other native trees are cleared for development.

"We know the human factor is responsible. We just have to figure out what it is," Dennison said.

Lyngbya can pull nitrogen out of the air and make its own fertilizer. It uses a different spectrum of sunlight than algae do, so it can thrive even in murky waters. Perhaps its most diabolical trick is its ability to feed on itself. When it dies and decays, it releases its own nitrogen and phosphorous into the water, spurring another generation of growth.

"Lyngbya has lots of tricks," scientist O'Neil said. "That's why it's been around for 3 billion years."

The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Publishing newspaper.

Study: Red tide may weaken people's immune systems

By KATE SPINNER

New York Times Regional Newspapers

ENGLEWOOD - When red tide drifts into town, coastal residents cough and wheeze. They also spend more time in the emergency room with pneumonia, according to a new study.

Scientists already recognized that toxin produced by red tide can strip manatees of their ability to ward off disease. So they started looking at whether the toxin causes similar damage to the human immune system.

Barbara Kirkpatrick, an environmental health scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, said her study suggests the toxin does cause immune deficiency in humans.

It revealed a 31 percent increase in emergency room visits for pneumonia when red tide bloomed near the coast.

Pneumonia generally attacks only after a person's immune system has been weakened by another illness.

"There's lots more work to be done, but it's sort of really the first piece of information that we've had," Kirkpatrick said.

The study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Florida Department of Health, will be published in an edition of the scientific journal Harmful Algae.

Kirkpatrick said the study does not give definitive proof that red tide toxins damage the human immune system, but the data add to a growing body of evidence that points to the toxin's ability to break down human defense against disease.

She revealed the results of the study at a public health meeting Wednesday night at Lemon Bay Park in Englewood.

During a three-month period when a red tide bloom hugged the Sarasota County shoreline, coastal residents visited the emergency room with complaints of respiratory ailments 54 percent more often than they did during a three-month period when there was no red tide, according to Kirkpatrick's research.

"When we broke it down to coastal residents, people with ZIP codes on barrier islands or on water, they were the ones who had the increase in admissions," Kirkpatrick said.

She noted that pneumonia-related visits to the emergency room increased 19 percent across all ZIP codes during the bloom.

But the increase in pneumonia-related visits increased 31 percent for residents who lived within a mile and a half of the beach, she said.

To conduct the study, Kirkpatrick reviewed Sarasota Memorial Hospital emergency room records from October, November and December 2001 and 2002.

Red tide plagued the coast during those three months in 2001, but was absent during the same period the following year.

Kirkpatrick broke down the data by ZIP code to see where the people who visited the emergency room lived.

The Sarasota hospital did not keep records of whether people who checked into the emergency room were exposed to red tide, but there were no reports of high pollen counts or unusual pneumonia outbreaks in 2001.

By analyzing records during the same three months the next year, Kirkpatrick said, the potential for pollen or seasonal tourism to skew the data is minimal.

Red tide is caused by a microscopic algae known in scientific circles as Karenia brevis, which occasionally encounters conditions in the Gulf of Mexico that allow it to over-populate into a bloom.

The algae naturally produce a poison that, in very low concentrations, causes little harm. But when a lot of the red tide-causing algae start reproducing and dying off, the poison accumulates to such high levels that it kills fish, coral, manatees and dolphins.

The toxin also becomes airborne, and if the bloom is inshore and the wind is blowing east, the toxic air finds its way to the sunbathers and shell collectors on the beach. Sometimes it wafts further inland as an unwelcome visitor to backyard barbecues and pool parties.

That irritating air worries people who live near the coast. Several residents at the Englewood forum told health officials they were concerned about the way red tide toxins affected their health.

Carol Ashton, who lives on Manasota Key, said her seasonal neighbor returns home to New Jersey with a sinus infection every time she visits when red tide is present.

Although the toxin causes such respiratory problems for people and might also weaken their immune systems, it has yet to prove deadly for humans, said Lorraine Backer, one of the study's 10 co-authors and team leader epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

She said scientists have documented the toxin's ability to destroy the immune system in manatees, but it's important to keep in mind that manatees breathe, eat and swim in the toxin.

For three years, Backer has been studying the effect of the red tide toxin on healthy lifeguards who work full-time on Sarasota beaches.

Though the lifeguards show signs of temporary illness, such as coughing and throat irritation when red tide is around, Backer said she has not come across any evidence that the toxin causes long-term health problems in the lifeguards.

Cathy Walsh, manager of the marine immunology program at Mote Marine Laboratory, said more research will show whether there is a threshold of exposure that people can withstand before the toxin harms their immune systems or causes long-term health problems. Certain populations, such as the very young, the elderly or the chronically ill, might also be more vulnerable to immune system suppression from the toxin, she said.

Inspired by Kirkpatrick's research and the evidence of the toxin's ill effects on manatees, Walsh recently began research to pinpoint exactly how red tide toxins attack different human immune cells.

"For a long time, people on the beach have recognized that respiratory symptoms are common and I think for a long time people assumed once you leave the beach that's the end of the story," Walsh said. "But there is actually a lot of evidence that the effects are more long term."

County should spend more to preserve land

By Times editorial
Published July 30, 2006

County government should resist the temptation to turn a portion of a voter-approved sales tax increase into the penance for Pasco.

Authorized by the electorate in spring 2004, the penny on the dollar sales tax increase finances new schools, roads, public safety equipment and environmental land preservation.

It is that last item that presents opportunities for Pasco County's beleaguered utilities department to escape severe punishment from state regulators. Under a consent order approved by Pasco commissioners, the county can use already planned improvements to mitigate a Department of Environmental Regulation penalty.

The county, facing a $1.8-million fine for repeated water and sewage failures, agreed to make improvements in its treatment and storage of sewage and reclaimed water.

A previously approved $66-million bond issue is covering the costs. In addition, the county can trim the fine to $359,000 if it does other, in-kind work, costing at least $2.1-million over the next two years. The list of work, still being compiled, can include such things as preserving sensitive land or upgrading areas on septic systems.

It's a fair trade. Instead of sending $1.44-million to the state, the county can spend $2.1-million within its boundaries. But, here's the rub: The county can meet its DEP obligation by getting credit for work it planned to do anyway. In other words, the environmental land acquisition and management program (ELAMP), financed by the Penny for Pasco sales tax increase, can offset the consent order obligations.

Where's the accountability? If developers attempted such a tactic to meet environmental requirements on wetlands, they'd be accused of double-dipping.

In March 2004, voters approved the tax, raising an estimated $3.6-million annually over 10 years for land preservation, and collection began Jan. 1, 2005. The county just made its first foray into preservation by agreeing to spend $1.1-million to protect 650 acres in north-central Pasco, about a third of which consists of wetlands at the headwaters of the Pithlachascotee River.

If the county wants to use existing programs to escape state sanctions, commissioners at least should toss an additional $1.44-million into the ELAMP fund to help acquire or restore sensitive land. It's relatively paltry in comparison with the account's expected 10-year $36-million total, but at least it would demonstrate an environmental commitment beyond what voters authorized.

It's not a new idea. Pinellas County's utilities department has accumulated preserved land for years. In Pasco, however, management of utility-acquired land should remain with ELAMP, which would diffuse the temptation to acquire property to land-bank for future water projects instead of for preservation and/or recreation.

Let's not forget what inspired the DEP action: 22-million gallons of raw sewage spilled from eight plants, including a breach near Lake Bernadette that went undetected for more than a month; more than 18-million gallons of poorly treated wastewater was sent to customers for irrigation; ignoring state orders to stop unauthorized expansion of the Wesley Chapel sewage treatment plant; and building and using a secret pipe to dump stormwater and partially treated wastewater into a tributary of the Hillsborough River.

It's a shameful list of transgressions, but earlier this year the state scrutiny brought unsolicited votes of confidence for utilities director Bruce Kennedy from Commissioners Pat Mulieri and Steve Simon.

They and the rest of the commission should be just as confident about pumping extra money into land preservation.

[Last modified July 30, 2006, 00:48:58]

Talk of east-west road revs up again

In the 1980s, the idea hit a dead end. Now, many Lutz residents tired of traffic and speeders welcome the plan.

By BILL COATS, Times Staff Writer
Published July 30, 2006

LUTZ - In its 95-year history, Lutz has opposed many things, but none like the infamous East-West Road of the 1980s. Lutz had a campaign song, a music video, hundreds of protesters and thousands of red and white bumper stickers.

Tampa Bay's leadership was heavily behind plans to build a perimeter expressway around Tampa, including the Veterans Expressway and Interstate 75. But the raucous opposition, and a timely power play in Tallahassee, stopped the expressway at N Dale Mabry Highway.

No politician has dared raise the topic since.

But lately, drivers have. By the thousands, they are weaving east and west through Lutz's older, two-lane roads. They're impatient for something better.

Many, including Lutz residents, spoke up for a new east-west road earlier this year in a series of hearings on speeding problems.

"That would definitely relieve Lutz and these roads that were built 70 years ago," says one, Bruce Boyer, who has lived in Lutz 30 years.

Boyer was one of the protesters in the 1980s. But he has changed his mind as 8,000 cars each weekday tear along Crenshaw Lake Road past his neighborhood.

"The east-west traffic, where people are passing through Lutz, we're not going to stop that," Boyer says.

Notably, Mary Figg also is voicing regret. As a member of the Florida House from Lutz through the 1980s, Figg gained huge influence over the state's transportation budget. Then she dropped a final ax on the East-West Road.

That move, she says now, "was shortsighted, you know? It was parochial."

The loudest clamor for a new east-west road may be just over the horizon, because the drive through Lutz that many have become accustomed to may soon be even more aggravating.

Hillsborough County ended its traffic hearings in May by authorizing several Lutz neighborhoods to petition for speed tables on their roads. Activists along Crenshaw Lake already have turned in the necessary signatures. Construction money waits. If county commissioners approve, four speed tables and four speed cushions could be installed next year on the road, a favorite choice of east-west commuters.

Boyer was one of the few neighbors who refused to sign the petitions. He thinks the speed tables will "patch" a problem that needs a larger cure.

"It's just going to irritate everybody," Boyer says.

Dodging water

Mother Nature long ago decreed that it would be tough to find a straight east-west route through northern Hillsborough County.

She created the county's biggest chain of lakes through Keystone and the second biggest through Lutz and Carrollwood. She made their waters migrate from north to south, toward Tampa Bay.

Lakes block roads. W Fowler Avenue ends just east of Lake Eckles. W Fletcher Avenue bends between Lake George and Lake Ellen. Van Dyke Road has bookends: Lake Keystone on the west and Lake Brant on the east.

Lutz is named, in part, for the man who was audacious enough in 1909 to carve out the community's longest east-west transportation corridor. The railroad that Charles Lutz built laid a rough path for Lutz-Lake Fern Road. But it veered around so many lakes and swamps that locals nicknamed it the "Pea Vine Railroad."

By 1980, road planners were dodging neighborhoods as well as water, and the neighborhoods fought back. The battle over an east-west road raged for years.

A meeting in 1988 attracted 550 citizens, mostly opposing the project. They were so rowdy the chairman repeatedly threatened to adjourn. Some carried a flag-draped coffin representing "The American Neighborhood."

Road planners nevertheless gave the East-West Road top priority.

But Figg was watching. First elected to the House in 1982, she was appointed in 1988 to lead the transportation subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. So Figg, more than any of the other 119 House members, shaped the budget of the Florida Transportation Department. And the East-West Road, more than any issue she ever had encountered, enraged her constituents.

Figg instructed the department to kill it.

"Even though it's parochial, people have a right to what they want," Figg says. "They have a right to ask their legislator to do what they want."

But, "It was not the best thought-out decision," she says.

Why?

"We don't have any good east-west roads in Hillsborough County."

East-West slowdown

In 1991, around the time Figg blocked the East-West Road, Lea May and her family moved from New York to Crenshaw Lake Road.

"The Realtor told us, 'Don't say East-West Road in Lutz,' "May recalls.

Now, 17 years later, May says half her neighbors want just such a road. May met most of them this spring as she and several allies obtained more than 160 signatures in favor of speed tables on Crenshaw Lake.

Along with Van Dyke, Crenshaw Lake has received much of the traffic the East-West Road was meant to carry.

"I don't care if they do use this as the East-West Road, as long as they slow traffic down to the speed limit," May says.

Next month, the petitions are likely to trigger a routine vote of the County Commission to build the tables, says Buz Barbour, a manager for the county's traffic-control efforts. It would be on the noncontroversial "consent agenda," with no discussion planned. Construction would follow within six months, Barbour says.

Then, a project that was debated entirely within Lutz would be imposed on drivers from outside Lutz. The speed tables would slow down commuters between Keystone and the University of South Florida area, between New Tampa and the Van Dyke area.

Four speed tables and four speed cushions would be built. The devices are 3.5 inches tall and 10 feet across, with 6-foot ramps. Tables span the roadway from shoulder to shoulder. Cushions do most of that, but leave gaps spaced for emergency vehicles to pass without slowing. A driver would encounter a cushion then a table as he approached each of Crenshaw Lake's two S-curves, and a table, then cushions leaving each curve.

The recommended speed for crossing the devices is 20 mph. Elsewhere, the road's speed limit would drop to 30 from 35.

Spunky idea

Two years ago, another option surfaced, like a spunky weed sprouting from asphalt. Long-range planners with Hillsborough County suggested that Lutz consider an eastward extension of Van Dyke Road to U.S. 41. That would create a modest East-West Road, at least from Gunn Highway to six-lane U.S. 41.

The extension would have required the county to buy and raze several homes, or build bridges over major swamps. Neighbors rallied in protest. The county quickly shelved the idea.

"Occasionally, we'll get a phone call," says Ned Baier, Hillsborough County's transportation planning manager. "They'll ask, 'Have you ever looked at a connection between the Suncoast Parkway and I-275?' Or, "Why does the Veterans Expressway end at Dale Mabry?' "

Beyond the history lessons, Baier's answer for the time being is, "The county's not looking to add projects that are unpopular, and that we don't have money for."

"The community will not unite on that subject," says Denise Layne, past president of the Lutz Civic Association, and moderator of the Lutz Transportation Task Force.

"I don't think it's going to happen in the next 10 to 20 years," she says. "If the will is there, it might be cut to 10, and I don't think the will is there."

Now, says Figg, "It's a little bit late to be talking about an east-west road through Lutz."

Bill Coats can be reached at coats@sptimes.com or 813 269-5309.

[Last modified July 30, 2006, 01:37:36]

State Hasn't Solved Insurance Problem

By GARY PINNELL
gpinnell@highlandstoday.com


AVON PARK - On June 19, three weeks after the hurricane season started, Jack Richardson got a letter from his insurance company, American National Property and Casualty of Missouri.

The policy on his 1990 concrete block home, northwest of Avon Park, was canceled, effective Sept. 23, 2006.

“I’m out hunting now for a place to pick up my insurance,” he said Thursday from downtown Sebring. He had already been turned down by Allstate. “I’m not sure who to talk to next.”

There Ought To Be A LawOn Thursday, Randy Johnson, a Republican vying for state chief financial officer, proposed preventing home insurers from dropping policies within a month of hurricane season. Johnson also suggested requiring insurance companies to inspect all older homes and give discounts to homeowners with hurricane-resistant features.

Johnson, from Celebration, suggested repealing a state law that eliminated a homeowners’ appeal of decisions on whether damage was caused by wind or water.

Charlotte Pressler has heard all the reasons why insurance companies won’t sell insurance policies: that insurance companies have taken too many losses in Florida during the past two years; that older homes have substandard pipes and wiring, which increases their risk; that insurers aren’t writing insurance any more for older homes.

Pressler is an English and philosophy professor at South Florida Community College. She has been restoring her 80-year-old Craftsman bungalow in Palmdale, Sebring’s first-ever subdivision.

Pressler’s $80 per-month insurance policy was cancelled, and she had buy a policy from the state of Florida’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. Tax and insurance now cost $200 a month – a third of her monthly payment.

Florida Family Insurance decided not to renew the policy.

“They did not give a reason,” Pressler said.

It was the same for her parents, who live in a condo on Madera Beach.

“Their’s was canceled, and they had to get Citizen’s,” Pressler said.

She suggested that the local and state governments must act.

“I believe that if this area is going to attract people that are going to help the community grow, one of the real keys is older, restored housing, which tends to attract professional people,” Pressler said. If cities want to control sprawl and preserve their historic districts, she said, it will be impossible unless residents can get reasonably priced insurance.

In other cities, historic homes are being bought for their scenic lots on lakes or quiet streets, torn down, and replaced by mini- mansions. The current insurance bias toward new houses makes that scenario more likely, she said.

And if people are unable to get bank loans on older homes, the McMansion scenario could happen in Sebring, she warned.

She doesn’t think it’s necessary to retrofit old houses to current hurricane standards, like roof tiedowns.

She reasons that her wood clapboard house has survived every Florida hurricane since 1926, proof that it’s more weather-worthy than the new condos, townhouses and homes that insurance companies prefer to insure.

Johnson’s ProposalJohnson wants to see a system similar to no-fault auto insurance, where a homeowner’s wind insurer represents the policy holder before the federal flood program if some damage is caused by water, rather than leaving it to the homeowner to fight to get a claim covered.

A spokesman for the Democratic candidate in the CFO’s race, Alex Sink, said she would try to strengthen the powers of the insurance commissioner to act on behalf of consumers, although she hasn’t released a plan with the specifics.

Sink also would try to form a regional catastrophe fund to create a backup pool with other hurricane and disaster-prone states to try to spread the reinsurance risk.

Meanwhile, Citizens President Bob Ricker said Thursday the company has $5 billion in reserves to cover potential losses in the current hurricane season.

“We are in excellent shape financially to deal with losses this year,” Ricker said.

The company had about $2 billion in cash and then the sale of about $3 billion in bonds gave it a cushion for paying claims. Another $5 billion is available from the CAT fund if needed, Ricker said.

CanceledRichardson’s insurance company did not specify why his policy was canceled, and he doesn’t know why.

“I’ve been insured with them since I first bought this house about 12 years ago,” Richardson said.

The cancellation is “based on negative exposure to hurricane losses in Florida,” the letter said, “not based on individual risk characteristics.”

Richardson, an elderly man whose wife died a year ago, tried to get insurance from Allstate. But Allstate has already canceled 120,000 policies in Florida, and said two weeks ago it plans to cancel 120,000 more policies.

“They said this house was too old for them to insure,” Richardson said. “It was built in 1990.”

Richardson’s daughter has joined the search.

“She is trying to find someone,” Richardson said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Wonder why our insurance rates are so high???

Home sweet flooded home

Despite repeated flooding, residents love the tropical feel of Shore Acres. But all of St. Petersburg knows there is a price to pay for living just above sea level.

By SHADI RAHIMI
Published July 30, 2006

---

infobox:

FLOOD CONTROL

Over the past 12 years, the city has poured more money into Shore Acres for flood control projects than any other neighborhood: more than $6.1-million. The efforts have all but eliminated routine flooding from high tides.

1994 - 10 stormwater controls south of Connecticut Avenue NE. Cost: $180,000.

1995 - Bayou Grande Boulevard, from Dover Street to Venetian Place, raised 6 to 8 inches with larger drainage pipes. Cost: $500,000.

1995 - Nebraska Avenue from Bayou Grande Boulevard to Chancellor Street, raised 4 to 6 inches with new drainage outfalls. Cost: $130,000.

2000 - Bayou Grande Boulevard from Venetian Place to 62nd Avenue NE, raised 6 to 8 inches. Cost: $1.2-million.

2001 - Delaware, Helena and Arizona avenues raised 6 to 8 inches; master storm drainage system replaced. Cost: $4.1-million.

2001 - Modification of stormwater controls in lowest-lying areas. Cost: $50,000.

By 2009 - About 15 additional stormwater controls to be installed. Estimated cost: $100,000.

Source: City of St. Petersburg

FLOOD INSURANCE CLAIMS

In 1996, many of the 3,000 homeowners in Shore Acres were flooded in Tropical Storm Josephine, and St. Petersburg landed on a national list of the 20 areas highest in repeat flood insurance claims.

Since then, the numbers have dropped significantly.

Year	Claims Paid in Shore Acres
1996	$17,479,612
1997	$31,548
1998	$15,009
1999	$17,470
2000	$94,378
2001	$26,041
2002	$8,340
2003	$10,992
2004	$1,906,945
Source: City of St. Petersburg, FEMA SHORE ACRES' beginnings Shore Acres was an area of pine woods, marsh and palmetto. The earliest plat map was filed March 1923. In 1925, Shore Acres Properties Inc. platted the overlook section with streets named after states. Nathaniel J. Upham, a developer from Duluth, Minn., began to sell tracts in the 1950s. The first large-scale development was 350 homes around Butterfly Lake followed by Waterfront Estates, Venetian Isles and Ponderosa Shores. Source: City of St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG - It's a lot like any other coastal community in Florida. Its pricier homes boast breathtaking views. Its residents own boats. But there's something about Shore Acres, a tropical Old Northeast neighborhood with modest cottages and expansive waterfront haciendas. It's got a rep it just can't shake. Shore Acres isn't New Orleans, however in this part of Florida, which in recent years has dodged a direct hit from a hurricane but has endured rough residual rains and winds - everyone around town just knows. Come storm or occasional tide higher than 3 feet above sea level: Shore Acres will flood. Built on the city's lowest-lying land, Shore Acres is its most flood-prone neighborhood. A decade ago, this tendency helped land St. Petersburg on a national list of the 20 areas highest in repeat flood insurance claims. Over the past 12 years, the city has poured more money into Shore Acres for flood control projects than any other neighborhood, more than $6.1-million, said Mike Conners, the city's administrator of internal services. The efforts have all but eliminated routine flooding from high tides. But nothing can prevent the flooding from storms, Conners said. Except maybe a levee, an idea proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1989 but soundly rejected by waterfront homeowners. Ask longtime residents today what defines Shore Acres, and most say people move to the neighborhood because of its tropical feel, its nice neighbors, its clean, quiet streets. Now, after years of stable ownership, some streets are changing. All along flood-prone stretches, "For Sale" signs dot the front lawns. Next door to some, multimillion-dollar houses are being built. With the past two hurricane seasons, it's gotten a bit tougher to sell in Shore Acres, real estate agents said. Many residents and real estate agents alike blame the neighborhood's persistent flood reputation. "It's like a knee-jerk reaction, it's a stereotype," said Mozelle Bell, 79. "It just makes us kind of mad." Rebranding didn't work. Bell grew so tired of her neighborhood's reputation that in 1997, she proposed a name change. "I wonder how much it would cost to change our name to Shore Island?" Bell wrote in a letter to the neighborhood association. But such a change turned out to be costly and complicated, requiring replatting and changing everyone's legal description, for starters. The idea quickly fizzled. Bell "fell in love" with Shore Acres in 1972. When she told her real estate agent, Bell said her reply was, "I have to warn you about the flooding." Bell shrugged off the warning and said her lakefront Dover Street NE home of 30 years has never flooded, The real estate agent who sold them their house, Mary Hochadel, 77, is a longtime Shore Acres resident. "I don't consider the flooding that drastic," she said. But she recalls the "really bad flooding" she witnessed in 1972, during Hurricane Agnes. It brought tides up to six feet higher than normal. Three years later, the city commissioned its first storm drainage study of Shore Acres. In the two decades that followed, it would spend nearly $400,000 on studies exploring how to fix a problem that began when homes began cropping up there in the 1950s. "All of the development was done in the absence of the regulations we see today regarding construction on a flood plain," Conners said. "There was a lack of proper consideration." The low-lying land on which Shore Acres sits also slopes, said Bob Weisberg, an oceanography professor at the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science. "You realistically have to raise all of Shore Acres to prevent most of the flooding from occurring," he said. Or, the city could build an enclosed levy around it and pump water out, Weisberg said, "then you change the name of the town to New Orleans." A 1989 federal study by the Army Corps suggested raising the seawalls at an estimated cost of $5.9-million to $18.3-million, or building an earthen dam levee in the Tampa Bay. Residents objected, saying it would ruin their views and property values. And the city found flood control projects would be more cost-effective. The Army Corps admitted recently that it botched planning and construction of the levees in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina's storm surge in August overwhelmed the levees, killing more than 1,300 people. No one is saying Shore Acres lives under the same threat New Orleans endured. Much of it sits below sea level, while Shore Acres is above, though "barely so," Weisberg said. "When the sea level rises, Shore Acres is going to flood and there's nothing you can do about it," he said. An array of fixes Conners, the city's administrator of internal services, has been working to ease the flooding problems longer than he's lived in Shore Acres. He moved to the neighborhood with his family 10 years ago. In 1994, the city launched projects to alleviate flooding during routine high tides. About $1.7-million has been spent since 1995 to raise stretches of Bayou Grande Boulevard and to install bigger drainage pipes, Conners said. "That alone has prevented about 50 to 60 high-tide events per year from backing up into the streets," he said. In 2001, about $4.1-million was spent to replace a master storm drainage system and to raise roads. By 2009, the city will finish installing a new system to prevent tide waters from backing up into streets. Before the flood control projects, "even on sunny days, residents had to worry about flooding because the high tides would make saltwater flood the streets," Conners said. In 1996, many of the 3,000 homeowners in Shore Acres were flooded in Tropical Storm Josephine. More than $17.5-million in flood insurance claims were paid to residents. After the storm season of 2004, just under $2-million in flood insurance claims were paid to residents. The city's efforts have allayed the concerns of developers interested in Shore Acres, said real estate agent Rhonda Sanderford of YES-Homes, Keller Williams Gulf Coast Realty. "Now people are comfortable spending $3-million on a spec house out there," she said. It's true, Shore Acres "has a reputation for flooding," Sanderford said. But most people understand that "if you want to live on the water, you always face the threat of hurricanes and flooding," she said. Still, it's getting tougher to sell homes quickly in Shore Acres, said Kevin Cottrill, a real estate agent with Hofacker & Associates. "A lot of people are saying, 'I'll look anywhere but Shore Acres,'" Cottrill said. "The first thing I'll ask of a house is, 'Has it been flooded?'" Driving down a street like Bayshore Boulevard, where "For Sale" signs dot yards, it's easy to assume that people are eager to move out of Shore Acres. But it's the same scene all around town, Cottrill said, where real estate inventories are higher than they have been in several years. "A lot of people are selling now because they think they might have missed boat on turning a profit," he said. "It's cyclical." To move or stay During Tropical Storm Alberto in June, Shore Acres lived up to expectations. Intersections flooded and water surged on Shore Acres Boulevard NE, creeping halfway up some driveways. But Rachel Ryan's home stayed dry. It has an elevated driveway, and the 14-year-old said her family has a storm-prep routine down pat. "We raise the boat," she said. "Anything fiber glass, like chairs and tables, we throw in the pool." Flooding isn't a big deal, Ryan said. "I've lived here my entire life," she said. "Living anywhere new would be torturous." But others grow weary, after enduring storm after storm. Donna Mooren, 50, has thought about moving, but knows she'd miss living in Shore Acres. Still, she's lost five cars to rusting from saltwater tides, and racked up tens of thousands in storm damage. Since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Mooren said she sees things in a different light. Despite a sunnier outlook, she was happy to be gone during Alberto. "I wasn't here to worry," Mooren said. "That was nice." [Last modified July 30, 2006, 01:08:27]

Rate hikes rankle residents

Many see insurance premiums double

BY PAIGE ST. JOHN
Gannett News Service

With recent state approval of a 53 percent rate hike for State Farm Florida, Carolyn Rowland's home insurance premium will have more than doubled since 2004. Now, she's afraid she can't pay the bill.

"I can't afford to live here if my premium goes up," said the lifelong Florida resident and State Farm policyholder, fed up with a $5,400 premium about to hit $11,000 for $250,000 insured value.

Neither can she afford to leave her home in Malabar -- values and taxes for a different home are inflated while sales in her coastal Atlantic community are slow.

"I can't afford to stay, but I can't afford to sell. It's made me a prisoner," she said.

Rowland recognizes she's not alone, and that worries her, too.

"This could have a serious hit on the economy of the state," she said.

A detailed look at how the state's largest private insurer has changed its rates since Hurricane Charley crashed ashore two years ago shows most Floridians are grappling with rate hikes much higher than the announced averages.

Regulators this month approved a 53 percent hike for State Farm Florida, on top of an 8 percent increase granted in 2005. But the company's rate sheets show:

Two out of three Floridians live in areas where State Farm's rates have jumped higher than the average.

• More than 5 million live in areas where the company's premiums have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled.
• In Brevard, premiums are up 71 to 144 percent, depending where property is located.

  State Farm Florida insures only a fraction of the people in those places -- about 1 million households statewide -- but the rate book for Florida's largest private insurer is an indicator for the rest of the industry. State Farm has more than 45,000 polices in Brevard.

  Nationwide, for instance, has filed a 71 percent average rate hike request. State-run Citizens Property Insurance, now nearly as big as State Farm, by law must charge rates higher than the highest private insurer. In a majority of Florida's counties, State Farm's new rates will set that bar.

  Those Citizens rates are the starting point for other private insurers as they take over the state-run company's policies, continuing the upward spiral.

  "We are facing a capacity, availability and affordability problem in the Florida insurance market," Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty told state building officials earlier this month, pressing for tougher codes to make homes more storm-proof to reduce losses.

  Losses

  After decades of using Town Hill Insurance, Will Herron of Merritt Island said he was dropped last year from his $600-a-year policy. His new insurer, Hull & Company, charges him and his wife, Sarah, more than double that amount -- $1,350.

  "I got a high deductible," added Herron, who bought his home in 1969 and worked for the city of Cocoa for 33 years until he retired. "Before, I had two percent. It went up to five percent."

  Herron shakes his head at the thought of the profits insurance companies are making.

  Six months after the devastating 2004 hurricanes, a FLORIDA TODAY investigation showed Floridians paid a total of $25.7 billion in premiums for homeowner's insurance since Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and billions more to insure businesses, cars and boats. As of November 2004, insurers had paid $12.4 billion in claims for all hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes since 1992, a number they predicted could grow to as much as $20 billion. It still left major insurance companies with a profit.

  Market force

  Realtors say the high rates are helping cool the state's housing market.

  Combine inflated home prices with tripled insurance premiums, and "my gosh, your first-time homebuyers are priced out of the market," Pensacola broker Dan Gullahorn said.

  The rates are also squeezing out existing homeowners.

  "Statistically, we should not have another major hurricane for some time, but when a storm comes up out of the Gulf, it doesn't care about statistics," Gullahorn said. "People here are kind of holding their breath."

  Florida lawmakers knew rate hikes were inevitable last spring, when they created state programs to strengthen homes and subsidize insurers. They admit they weren't prepared for the size of the shockwave.

  "I think it's getting to be a crisis level around the state," said Rep. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican who asked regulators to consider an emergency state-run pool for business owners who can't find windstorm coverage.

  Politics

  Insurance is an attractive political whipping post.

  Candidates of both parties propose solutions, including pressing Gov. Jeb Bush to call lawmakers off the campaign trail for a special session of the Legislature, but no consensus exists.

  The governor concedes Florida's insurance problems are huge -- he calls it a "perfect storm in the short run," with consumers' "legitimate tales of woe," businesses unable to find coverage, and insurers themselves vulnerable to huge losses from another hurricane.

  Bush said he is doubtful a special session before the November elections would help anything but electioneering, and has asked a task force of noninsurance experts to report on options by December, when the political winds diminish.

  "Frankly, there are no solutions that I've seen, either inside or outside of politics, that will yield short-term results of any consequence," the governor said.

  Harold Cameron won't wait for political solutions. Rather than pay a $2,300 insurance bill, the retiree who recently landed with Citizens as his insurer, has put a "For Sale" sign in front of his St. Petersburg home. He says he'll head to Georgia, where Social Security is more likely to cover the cost of living.

  "This was going to be my home when I moved here 23 years ago, but I'm not going to suffer that kind of a loss," Cameron said. "I'm moving to an area that offers some kind of sanity in insurance."

  Back in Malabar, Rowland, a stay-at-home mom, also is contemplating major change -- giving up parenting time with her teen daughters.

  "I literally have to go back to work because of my insurance bill," she said.

Sky-high premiums igniting a revolt by consumers
Homeowners in Florida are banding together in an effort to fight rising windstorm insurance premiums that threaten to drive some from their homes.
BY MONICA HATCHER
mhatcher@MiamiHerald.com

Under fluorescent lights and through a microphone that kept shorting out, Joe Fontana cleared his throat and addressed his small audience.

''The insurance companies are going berserk,'' he said. ``There's no limit to what they will charge homeowners. We have to find a way to counteract this or the people in this city are going to be killed.''

Then Fontana led the 38-building-strong Miami Beach Condominium and Homeowners Alliance in devising a plan to try to stop the runaway cost of windstorm insurance.

Consumers like Fontana, fed up with double- and triple-digit insurance rate increases, are beginning to band together. Decades-old home and condo associations, newly formed grass-roots organizations and accidental neighborhood juntas are cropping up around the state to press for solutions to Florida's escalating insurance crisis.

From the Keys to the Panhandle, the groups are raising money, firing off e-mails, holding meetings, sponsoring petition drives and hiring lobbyists and lawyers to make their case in Tallahassee. Many are starting to see a benefit of wielding a collective fist.

At its meeting Thursday night at the Mimosa condominiums on Collins Avenue, the Miami Beach Alliance explored the idea of self-insuring. But instead it decided to use its political clout.

Noting that it is election season, the group will urge its members, representing about 8,000 home and condo owners, to write and call their elected officials about easing the windstorm burden.

Other groups have embarked on more ambitious endeavors.

STANDING FIRM

Born from a backyard get-together in Key West, a consumer activist group known as FIRM -- Fair Insurance Rates in Monroe -- has raised as much as $50,000 in its effort to fight Citizens Property Insurance premiums in the Keys, inspired by one woman's crusade to have her own insurance rates reduced.

Cindy Derocher was outraged when her property insurance bill rose from $5,000 to $12,000. Instead of paying right away, she applied for mitigation credits and whittled it to $9,600.

''That's what started us doing research,'' Teri Johnston, FIRM's president, said. ``We found out that Citizens was charging us $20.91 per $1,000 of principal coverage. That's in comparison to coastal areas on the Panhandle that were paying $4 per $1,000.''

FIRM, founded in February, boasts 4,000 members. The group chartered an airplane to ferry members to the state's Capitol to meet with lawmakers and invited state Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty and U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, to Key West.

SMALL VICTORY

Its efforts have paid off -- at least temporarily. In May, McCarty issued an order freezing rates in Monroe County for Citizens, the state-run insurance pool that by law must charge the highest rates in the state.

''When we first started this organization, many people said to us that you can't fight government and you can't fight big business and you can't fight the insurance lobby. We have proved that is not true,'' Johnston said. ``When you get a group of concerned, educated citizens together, you can.''

Many around the state are taking that message to heart.

The 5-month-old Homeowners Against Citizens Florida, a nonprofit out of Pasco County, has seen its ranks swell to 7,000 members statewide. The group says it has collected twice as many signatures on a petition calling for a special legislative session to address the crisis.

Similarly, the year-old two-million-strong Coalition of Community Association of Florida, an umbrella group of homeowners associations, is drafting insurance legislation that it says would make it harder for insurers to randomly drop policies and plans to lobby for it next session.

Make no mistake, motivating homeowners hasn't been easy, said Jan Bergemann, president of Cyber Citizens for Justice, a statewide organization that does most of its activism through the Internet.

''Americans are not very easy to rally together. They would rather watch American Idol than look after their insurance premiums, but it's an emergency and people are coming out,'' Bergemann said.

Miami Herald business writer Beatrice E. Garcia contributed to this report.

 

Runaway train
Where to put spiraling student population? Candidates offer ideas

BY JOE CALLAHAN
THE STAR-BANNER

OCALA - About 20,000 new students are racing toward Marion County in the next decade - like a runaway train - and officials are hoping they can build enough classrooms to keep the school district from derailing.

A recent population study shows that Marion County public schools could grow in the next decade by 50 percent, or 20,000 students, forcing the School Board to build 18 new schools.

The school system will likely need $450 million to build new schools at today's prices with only $200 million in half-cent sales tax and impact fee revenue expected during that time span.

The new $3,500 impact fee for new homes will only generate about $8.5 million, or less than half the cost of one new school, for every 2,500 new homes. Over the course of a decade, the impact fee would generate about $100 million.

And since the half-cent sales tax ends next year, the school system will have to rely on state funding to bridge that gap. However, Florida Department of Education guidelines doesn't allow school districts to receive funding based on long-term projected growth.

The anticipated growth is one of the big issues leading into this year's School Board elections, where two of the five seats are up for grabs.

Political newcomer Dave Alvarez, 51, is squaring off in District 4 against School Board Chairwoman Sue Mosley, 43, who is seeking a second term.

There will be two challengers, Christopher Thurow, 48, and Joyce Romanski, 70, running for the District 5 seat held by Ron Crawford, 53, who is seeking his third term.

The Mosley-Alvarez race will be decided in the Sept. 5 primary. In the District 5 race, if one of the three candidates does not receive 50 percent of the vote in the primary, then the top two will decide the race in the Nov. 7 general election.

School Board Vice Chairman Kurt Kelly is running unopposed in District 3.

The Star-Banner interviewed all five candidates about managing the Marion County public schools growth and what needs to be done to pay for what is expected to be a massive school expansion.

DISTRICT 4
MOSLEY-ALVAREZ
Four years ago, Mosley - the incumbent board chairwoman - said the school system needed an expert to help the district look to the future.

In June, the school system hired Dave Herlihy as the district's planning and government relations manager to help with growth planning.

"My first board meeting I began pushing for better planning and the need for a growth planner," Mosley said, adding she believes state funding for construction will continue because of the rapid growth.

Projected growth for the next decade is such that Marion County will always be able to show the need for new schools, even though local impact fees and half-cent sales tax monies will fund some schools, she said.

The four-year veteran School Board member said she is in favor of building up, not out, when it comes to new schools.

She said by adding floors to schools, the children also will get more exercise - since physical education has played less of a role in today's school life.

"It's not about the facility, it's about quality education," she said, adding that Ward-Highlands Elementary School is more than 40 years old and is currently being renovated.

"[Ward-Highlands has] been an 'A' school for seven years even with the school falling down around them," she continued. "It's about education."

Her opponent, Dave Alvarez, said addressing state legislators is the key in changing the Department of Education rules and regulations in regards to acquiring money for new schools.

Alvarez, the former president of Microdyne, said that with Florida growing by record numbers, DOE should allow some future growth predictions to be factored in when it comes to funding districts for construction projects.

"Those requirements in Tallahassee absolutely need to be revised," Alvarez said, stating funding shouldn't be issued only after the students show up. "Growth just doesn't happen overnight, and we should do our part and look to acquire the property now for the future."

When it comes to financing schools, Alvarez is in favor of borrowing $100 million in bonds, which would be paid back through impact fees and half-cent sales tax monies, so schools can be built at today's prices.

In five years, the cost of building a school has doubled and officials say the costs continue to rise by at least 15 percent annually.

Alvarez said he is in favor of bidding out numerous schools at once so that several schools can be built at the same time for today's dollars.

"We need to build at today's prices," he said. "We can't hide the fact that we need to be proactive and we must lay out a strategic plan."

DISTRICT 5
CRAWFORD-THUROW-ROMANSKI
Crawford, the incumbent, said acquiring money for schools is a balancing act, one where the School Board must build consistently but not too far ahead.

He said it is important that "what you build is completely utilized." Crawford said that officials in Tallahassee, especially DOE and the legislators, need to revisit the way they issue money for new schools.

"It has to be a fine balance because there is no magic bullet," Crawford said.

Crawford said it is important that Marion County residents know that years ago the School Board had a viable plan for building schools.

That plan became void when population growth exceeded projections and when the class-size amendment required school districts to have fewer students per teacher in the classroom or fewer students per school.

Crawford said the state now requires school systems to project budgets out for five years, even though school growth is only projected based on the last four years of enrollment figures.

"The funding issue will never be easy," he said.

Meanwhile, Christopher Thurow said he believes it is up to the school districts to fill the gap and shouldn't rely on state dollars to keep ahead of growth.

State funding is primarily used for the classroom and all districts in the state should finance their own growth projects.

"The ball is completely in our court," he said, adding the local boards are responsible for the growth occurring within its boundaries. "We should have enacted impact fees at least 10 years ago."

With impact fees at about $3,500 for homes, as well as roughly $1,900 for an apartment-type unit and $3,050 for mobile homes, the funding generated by the fees will not be enough, Thurow said.

"Impact fees will have to be gradually increased through the years," he said.

Thurow said he's running because he could be an asset to school building issues because of his experience in the budgeting process as Bradford County's director of information technology.

"I enjoy public service," he said.
The other opponent, retired school teacher Joyce Romanski, said she not only has 25 years experience in the classroom, she also worked in a business for 18 years before moving to Marion County in 1974.

Romanski said that her work experience should be a valuable asset.

She said the public needs to have more input into the decision that the School Board makes, especially when it comes to placement of schools.

She supports a town hall meeting concept when it comes to selecting property for new schools. She said locations of schools can drastically impact the way of life of residents living near those schools.

"Traffic is just one example," she said, adding that residents living southwest of Ocala along state Road 200 are concerned about the traffic the new Hammett Bowen Elementary School will have on the area.

Romanski is also in favor of the school campus concepts - or basically buying land where two or even three schools could be built. She is also in favor of building up, not out.

"I also believe we should create a tax on the resale of homes," said Romanski, adding the money would be assessed to new Marion County residents who buy older homes since school impact fees are assessed on new construction.

_____
Joe Callahan may be reached at joe.callahan@starbanner.com or at (352) 817-1750.

Growth Squeezes Polk Schools

By Julia Crouse
The Ledger

BARTOW
Don't be surprised if Polk County's newest schools are overcrowded when they open. It's been that way for a long time. In fact, it's so common that blueprints for new schools include slots for six or more portable classrooms.

"It's a sad thing to add portables to a brand-new school," said Bob Williams, who as assistant superintendent of facilities and operations is the point man in the district's massive school construction program. "But we might as well accept reality that schools will be overcrowded by the time they open."

Winter Haven's brand new Chain of Lakes Elementary School is an example: It opened at full capacity last August and added six portable classrooms later that school year.

What this means is that the School District can't build schools fast enough to accommodate the influx of thousands of new students each year.

Today's installment of "As More Make Polk Their Home," The Ledger's year- long series of articles about the impact of growth in Polk County, examines the challenges facing Polk's public school system.

These are the numbers:

•  District officials expect 90,477 students when school begins Aug. 7, a 5 percent increase from last school year. The state estimates Polk will grow to 92,464 students by the end of the school year.

•  4,310 new students are expected when the school year begins with most, 2,023, in elementary schools; middle schools will see 623 new students while high schools will get 1,664 new students.

•  The district ordered 60 new portable classrooms this year at a cost of $4.5 million. That brings Polk's total number of portables to 1,100.

•  The district will complete construction on 150 new classrooms added to existing schools in the next year.

•  In August, the district will open one elementary school and one elementary charter school, two small honors high schools and a small charter high school. The three high schools will open on existing school campuses -- at Haines City High, Bartow High and Polk Community College.

Despite the new schools that have opened the last several years and the classroom expansion at some schools, the School District is still behind.

The district lacks more than 1,100 permanent classrooms to house all of its current students. And until the district's brick-and-mortar classrooms catch up to the number of students, portables will be necessary, Williams said.

THREE FACTORS

Polk's overflowing schools are caused by three primary factors: growth, the class size amendment and a construction backlog, Williams said.

Until the School District persuaded Polk voters to pass a half-cent sales tax three years ago, the district had little money to build new schools and classrooms to house its ever-growing student body.

In 2004, the county also began collecting impact fees on new home construction to help pay for new schools.

Now, the district is "playing catch-up" and building the schools it desperately needed several years ago but had no money to build, Williams said.

Of the 67 school districts in Florida, Polk County was one of the few that had more students than expected enroll in the 2005-06 school year. Polk anticipated 1,768 more students and actually enrolled 2,976, according to the Department of Education.

School Board member Frank O'Reilly said the district will continue its battle to build a sufficient number of classrooms because it's unlikely that growth will level off any time soon.

"Where would we be without the half-cent sales tax? Where would we be without the impact fee?" he asked. "It would be a nightmare."

So far, the district has brought in more than $80.3 million in sales tax dollars. It has added $38.2 million to its coffers in new home impact fees.

That money already has funded 13 projects.

In the spring of 2002, the district unveiled its "Polk's Promise," a document listing every classroom addition, new school and remodeling project it would build if Polk voters passed the 15-year half-penny sales tax.

But later that year, Florida voters passed the Class Size Reduction amendment to the state's constitution, restricting the class size of all public school classrooms.

The Class Size Amendment forced the district to rework its sales tax construction list to reflect the need for more classroom space. But to build all the additional classrooms, Polk would need about $230 million more than it estimated the sales tax and new home impact fees would generate.

This year, Polk has 41 school construction projects, ranging from finding land for four new elementary schools to building a new middle and high school and completing more than a dozen classroom additions.

In its capital improvement plan stretching to 2010, the district had planned 167 construction projects, including 13 new schools, at a cost of more than $500 million.

Over the tax's 15-year life, Polk expects to collect more than $658 million from the tax, impact fees and state contributions. But the district estimates it needs more than $885 million to build every classroom that's needed to comply with the class-size amendment.

The Polk County Commission added an impact fee of $1,607 on new homes that began in January 2004. Commissioners increased the fee by 435 percent to $8,596 last September.

The increased fee was expected to bring in an additional $128 million that the School Board planned to spend largely on construction to help the district meet class-size reduction requirements.

The district got an unprecedented $98.2 million in construction funds this year, including a one-time payout of $81.7 million for class size.

Williams said he doesn't expect another massive class-size subsidy.

But Polk's annual construction funding should remain significant because its formula was changed to reflect population growth instead of just the size of the student body. This year, Polk's annual school construction dollars were increased to nearly $25 million.

Because of the state's large contribution, earlier this month Polk County commissioners lowered the new home impact fee by $2,590 to $6,006.

The Polk County Builder's Association recently filed suit against the County Commission, arguing that only $2,838 of the former $8,596 fee is justified.

According to its agreement with the commissioners, the School Board assumes responsibility for legal fees and potential damages.

REAPING WHAT IS SOWED

With its frenetic school construction schedules, Polk County is reaping the consequences of poor growth management, said Hazel Sellers, chairwoman of the School Board.

But she's optimistic, adding that Polk may catch up to growth in her lifetime.

The only way that will happen is to change to process of growth, she said.

By March 2007, the district hopes to work with all of the county's municipalities to plan a new school or classroom addition in conjunction with planning for a new development.

The state has mandated that school concurrency be in effect by 2008, but Polk wants to start a year sooner.

"We're not against growth," she said. "We just want planned growth with all the services that make Polk County a desirable place to live."

COST INCREASES

More students and laws mandating more classrooms are not the only factors in Polk's continuing increase in building costs.

Every year, the price of land, materials and labor to build schools goes up by 20 percent or more, Williams said.

The elementary school that cost $14 million to build last year now costs $17 million.

At $52 million, a high school costs about $10 million more to build now than it did last year. But that's a bargain. The price for a new high school in Volusia County came in at just under $100 million.

"We're not that bad off yet," Williams said.

Middle schools rose the most, a 33 percent increase from $24 million to $32 million.

Because the prices are so unstable, it's difficult to set budgets and get subcontractors to bid on projects at fixed prices, Williams said.

But Polk has met the state's class- size requirements and Williams said it will this year, too.

PORTABLE SCHOOL

Only one new traditional school is opening this year, but 32 new traditional schools are slated to open by 2016.

The other schools opening this year are nontraditional or charter schools, run by a independent governing board. A traditional school is a district-run elementary, middle or high school on a stand-alone campus.

Polk's newest school opening in the Poinciana area is a testament to East Polk's growth and the district's creativity to address the problem.

Northeast Polk had an unexpectedly large surge in its student population last school year. Four of the schools in Polk's Four Corners area had nearly double their capacities, and half their students were in portable classrooms.

The district is building another elementary school -- Lake Marion Creek -- in the Poinciana area, but it won't be open until 2007.

"We knew we couldn't wait another year for the (Lake Marion Creek) school to finish," Williams said.

So for about half the cost of a traditional campus, the district built a modular school for $6 million in about six months.

Instead of a regular campus of brick and mortar classrooms housed in several buildings, the modular school has one permanent building for administration and the cafeteria. All the classrooms will be portables.

The modular school will house the students of Lake Marion Creek this year. In 2007, when those students transfer to their permanent home, another student body will move into the modular school.

The school, which can be expanded or shrunk on demand, will temporarily relieve Polk's severely overcrowded schools in Four Corners until new classrooms or a new campus is finished.

Williams said the district was inspired by a similar modular school in Orange County. Polk did something on a smaller scale at Ridge Career Center to temporarily house its teen-parenting program.

The modular school is a good stop-gap measure to control overcrowding when unexpected growth surges, he said.

Later, when overcrowding is under control, the Poinciana school will be converted to a permanent school, Williams said.

SLOWING DOWN?

There may be relief on the horizon.

Last year, the state Department of Education expected to enroll 65,474 more students and just 29,844 showed up, 35,600 fewer than anticipated.

This year, the state expects to grow by a conservative 1.91 percent, or 50,536 students.

Polk schools Superintendent Gail McKinzie said the peak population projection of 92,464 students for Polk schools might be a tad high.

She expects to stay in the 90,000 range for the 2006-2007 school year, based on the lower number of housing permits issued this year compared with last year.

The district closely watches the number of permits issued as well as how long houses stay on the market to determine where and how much growth will occur.

The district formula figures one student for every three homes.

Because the market has slightly slowed, McKinzie said she's been cautious with staffing. This year, Polk hired 140 new teachers because of growth and 400 for class size reduction.

If the district hits the 92,400 mark, McKinzie said Polk will be prepared.

Polk may be physically able to handle more students with portable classrooms and plenty of teachers.

But O'Reilly said schools lose something special when they are vastly overcrowded.

"I wonder what kind of quality of life we're giving when we can't provide enough land for schools or the infrastructure necessary to sustain all these folks who are moving in," he said.

Julia Crouse can be reached at julia.crouse@theledger.com or 863-802-7536.

(too little, too late)

Developers Get a Share of School Problem in County 

By Julia Crouse
The Ledger

BARTOW -- Developers planning to build homes in Polk County soon will have something new to consider: Where will the children go to school?

Developers can donate land, money or other services to make sure capacity is available at nearby schools. Otherwise, developments may not be approved for construction.

The School District, Polk's 17 cities and the county will begin working together to make sure school capacity can handle student growth generated by new homes -- a process known as concurrency.

Currently, state law requires concurrency for roads and sewer lines. Schools are a new addition. The state Legislature mandated that schools be included in concurrency plans by early 2008. But Polk officials want a head start.

Before summer ends, the School Board will approve a policy that spells out concurrency and details its position on school capacity and why the board is against creating year-round schools or using double sessions to maximize capacity, said Bob Williams, the district's assistant superintendent of facilities and operations.

Later this year, the county and the municipalities will approve the plan and enact policies to work with the School District.

Starting the concurrency process will be expensive for the district but worth it in the end, said School Board Chairwoman Hazel Sellers. "It won't stop growth but plan for it because we'll have appropriate schools and won't have to worry about double sessions or any other really undesirable consequences of growth," she said.

Concurrency will be costly because it will require more paperwork and time on the district's part. Each developer will be required to meet with district officials to determine the impact of proposed housing.

The district will have to buy new software systems to track growth, student enrollment, home sales and developments to determine how many students to expect.

Williams and his staff presented a concurrency plan in mid-July for the School Board to consider as it formulates its policy.

Williams recommends that the School Board define school capacity along the same lines as the Department of Education and use all permanent student stations. For example, an elementary school built for 825 students would have a capacity of 825. Capacity would not include portable classrooms.

Realistically, elementary schools use about 90 percent of their space to capacity. Most schools have classrooms converted to computer labs, exceptional student education or tutoring rooms that aren't filled to the rooms' capacity, Williams said.

Under Williams' capacity recommendation, 32 of Polk's elementary schools are at capacity and 38 are over capacity. Eighteen middle schools are at capacity and three are over. Ten high schools are at capacity and five are over.

Julia Crouse can be reached at julia.crouse@theledger.com or 863-802-7536.

Schools fight to add space

Rising enrollments and class-size limits put districts in a bind.

Claudia Zequeira and Mariana Minaya
Sentinel Staff Writers

July 30, 2006

More than a dozen new schools will open this school year as Central Florida school districts attack the twin demons of growing enrollment and more stringent state limits on the number of students allowed per classroom.

Districts have been on a building binge, scrambling to acquire land and erect schools. But millions of dollars also have been spent to convert existing spaces, either by adding classroom wings or installing portable classrooms or modular units.

New schools alone aren't enough to do the job when you're expecting more than 15,000 new students this year in Central Florida.

When Seminole County schools resume classes Monday, students in Lake Mary will find two new schools: Crystal Lake Elementary and Markham Woods Middle. Hagerty High, which opened last year in Oviedo, has added 2,300 new student stations.

Yet the district also will go back to school with a net gain of 14 portables, with 28 modular classrooms expected to be added during the year.

"That is the easiest, quickest way to bring students in and bring that class-size number down," said Scott Stegall, capital-outlay director for Seminole schools.

Perhaps nowhere is the reliance on modular units more apparent than in Polk County, where classes start Aug. 7. The only new school set to open, Lake Marion Creek Elementary in Poinciana, will consist of one main building and 52 high-end portables connected by covered walkways.

The school was built in part to offer relief to Eastside Elementary and Sandhill Elementary, both in Haines City, but populations at those schools remained at 1,400 students despite the effort, officials said.

Lake Marion Creek itself, built for about 800 students, has attracted close to 1,200 students so far.

"We're booming. We're registering 20 to 50 people per day," said Assistant Principal Sheila Gregory. "But parents are embracing the school wholeheartedly. Many of them had been in overcrowded situations where their kids were being bused for 45 minutes just to attend school."

The state constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2002 limited class sizes in core courses, such as math and reading, to 18 students in pre-kindergarten through third grade; 22 children in grades 4 to 8; and 25 students in high school.

Thus far, counties had been allowed to use districtwide averages to meet class-size requirements. By that measure, all Central Florida districts complied last year. But for the 2006-07 school year, the process will kick into a higher gear. Now, average class size at each school must meet the class-size targets.

Orange County schools, for instance, spent $190 million to complete nine new schools this year, adding 8,625 student stations. Officials also spent $139.6 million on improvements at 11 schools and plan to add 246 portables this year.

Still, the county faces a severe seating deficit, estimated at more than 17,000 seats in 2004-2005. Class-size reduction alone increased the number of schools needed in the county by 31 schools, officials said.

"What we did this year in terms of construction we would have been doing even without class-size reduction," said Facilities Director Pat Herron. "But now, with the requirements, this makes our seating deficit much more severe. It's become a tremendous burden."

Despite expansions, it is unclear whether districts will be able to comply with the new mandate. That is because many are operating at close to capacity and student growth is holding steady.

Rules of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which allows students to transfer out of low-performing schools, also puts a strain on districts. Even a small population shift could violate the state rules.

"It's like nailing Jell-O to the wall. You have so many variables," said Pat Drago, executive director for facilities services in Volusia. "We may have enrollment shifts of up to 100 kids at each individual school. How can anyone meet requirements like that?"

In Volusia, three new schools will open Aug. 7. Additions at two campuses will house a total of 1,452 students. Five more additions will be completed by December.

The size of a typical elementary classroom of new schools in the district has dropped from roughly 1,000 square feet to 900 square feet to save money and still meet state rules. In that setting, Drago said, districts can teach one regular-size class or employ "co-teaching," where two teachers supervise a larger class together.

Older schools can pose problems, however.

Some classrooms in Osceola County might feel larger now that classes have shrunk. But they're too small to accommodate co-teaching.

Rather than do costly internal renovations, the district chose to focus on building new schools, adding new wings to old ones and leasing portables.

"The [classrooms] that we have now were built with the standards existent at that time, but the new standards are different," said Rick Collins, assistant superintendent for business services in Osceola. "Those are the schools that are going to be a challenge, especially for a district that's growing as fast as we are."

Brand-new Sunrise Elementary and a 20-classroom addition at Ventura Elementary, both in Kissimmee, will debut this August.

In Brevard County, Viera High School and Sunrise Elementary in Palm Bay are opening to deal with two high-growth communities, said Dane Theodore, director of planning and project management for Brevard County public schools.

The county has built additions in five schools, adding 46 classrooms, and purchased about 50 more portables, said Jay Stannard, facilities planner for Brevard.

Theodore said the district's basic strategy is to give schools portables until they can build an addition, then move the portables to whatever school needs them next.

Between the additions and the portables, he said, "We believe it will solve both the growth and class-size requirements this year."

But compliance comes at a price. Parents, for example, generally hate portables.

Tammy Ewald, whose daughter attends Waterford Elementary in Orange County, said she recognizes that portable buildings are "just the reality of the county," but she would like to see them gone.

"I think portables as a temporary solution are fine sometimes, but sometimes they end up being a long-term thing and it shouldn't be," she said. "In inclement weather, they can be a real problem. It's fine that they empty them out, but then you have to double up in the classroom."

Others mourn the loss of room on their campuses.

In Orange County, Herron said portables added at many of the county's elementary schools have come at the expense of other useful areas.

"They're taking over parking lots, they're taking over playing fields; they've taken over open spaces," he said.

Claudia Zequeira can be reached at 407-931-5934. Mariana Minaya can be reached at mminaya@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-6273.

Lauren Ritchie

Groveland needs to drop out of school

Published July 30, 2006

This is going to kill me to say it: Anna Cowin can do it better.

Far, far better than Groveland.

This is an age of specialization, even in the most basic of businesses.

The guy who paints your walls is not the same person who taped around the windows. The lawyer who puts together corporate mergers doesn't file your divorce.

And just because you can pick up garbage and sweep streets doesn't qualify you to educate children.

Yet, Groveland is racing ahead to open a school.

This is colossally foolish.

The city decided to contract with a charter-school company to get a K-8 school. The written agreement states that Charter Schools USA of Fort Lauderdale would find its own backers to pay for a building, then lease it to the city. This whole too-good-to-be-true plan was sold to City Council members and taxpayers as a no-cost deal.

Groveland's council members were proud. This was going to be so slick that Groveland would be looking mighty fine compared to the dimwits on the School Board who can't build a school without years of whining.

Suddenly, however, Charter USA can't seem to find the cash. The school that the for-profit company proposes is supposedly a year from opening and there's not a dime with which to build. (It takes more than a year to build even an elementary school.)

So Groveland is poised to step in and save the day by issuing $17 million in tax-free bonds for the company's nonprofit arm to build classrooms. Then, the city will lease the school and make the payments.

Groveland's elected leaders need classes in math and logic.

For starters, $17 million won't build a school for 1,700 children. This is fantasy. Ask anyone who builds them in today's market.

Then, add up what taxpayer money is going to a private business: They've already pledged 20 acres and $1 million to cover operating shortfalls. Business owners, wouldn't it be nice if Groveland gave that to you, too? The fact that the firm can't deliver capital money is a signal the city should run away, not play Florence Nightingale to a for-profit company.

Need to know more? Ask Kissimmee in neighboring Osceola County. The city issued about $9 million in bonds to build a school for a charter company to run. Last year, the state gave Kissimmee about $250,000 to cover facility costs that topped $640,000. So where did the money to make up the difference come from? It came from cash that the state gives for operations of the school. In other words, kids are getting gypped.

Groveland can't get its downtown cleaned up. It can't build a sewer plant on time to meet the growth it has approved. It keeps approving more and more sprawl, throwing out the meager bone of getting a real live supermarket.

Are these the people you want to teach your children?

"We've gotten into this so far now," Councilman Richard Flynn said. "I don't think we should back out of it."

Au contraire. That is precisely what Groveland should do. The city should stop spending millions of dollars to help a private company make money.

In its unquenchable greed to grow, Groveland's council members are getting city taxpayers into a situation with far-reaching consequences that they are unqualified to accurately judge. And they are even more unqualified to dabble in the serious business of educating children.

Back out? Oh, yes. This instant.

Lauren Ritchie can be reached at Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918.

Dealers fear antiques may be obsolete in Arcadia

Business owners are divided over developing a more lively downtown or saving what the town is famous for.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published July 30, 2006

ARCADIA - On this point, everyone agrees: antiques have been very good to Arcadia.

Dealers and collectors from all over Florida flock to the many downtown shops, giddy at the sight of so much Roseville pottery, vintage clothing and '50s kitchenware packed into one quaint and walkable area.

By the time Hurricane Charley ripped through DeSoto County two years ago, Arcadia had become one of the state's premier antique districts. Charley heavily damaged some of the stores, but most have reopened and business is nearly back to normal

Now, though, Arcadia faces a different kind of tempest, one swirling in many parts of Florida as the forces of development clash with the yearning for small-town charm.

Some building owners say Arcadia can't live on antiques alone and needs a greater variety of businesses. Within the past few weeks, downtown has gained a new bookstore and a coffee shop with espresso and cappuccino. Plans are underway for an upscale inn.

Once the antique stores close in the afternoon, "it's dead here," says Martha Craven, who with her husband is renovating several historic buildings. "I want to see people walking on the streets in the evening. You can't have a living city if people aren't living there."

But some of the antique dealers fear diversification will push up rents and drive out the very businesses that draw so many visitors to Arcadia. They have split with the main downtown development association and recently started their own group to better promote the antique and collectibles trade.

"We want to preserve what we have here, which is so many shops in one area," says Cindy Long, president of the new Antique Association of Arcadia. "The reason people come to this town is for the antique shops."

Depending on how you look at it, Arcadia is either in the middle of nowhere or centrally located.

To get here, you have to drive miles and miles over two-lane roads, past vast stretches of undeveloped land where cattle and horses outnumber people. But Arcadia is just two hours or less from Tampa Bay, Naples and the state's east coast, making it a perfect day trip for those seeking a bit of Old Florida and one-of-a-kind shopping.

"I thought it was a wonderful little town and it had so much potential," says Mary Sheppard, owner of Mary's Attic. "You can park your car for the day without moving it, shop all day and have a wonderful lunch."

Sheppard moved from Sarasota 13 years ago, at a time when Arcadia was still best known for its Watermelon Festival and Fourth of July rodeo. Many of its historic buildings - most dating back to 1906, the year after a fire destroyed much of downtown - were vacant and in disrepair. But folks afflicted with the antiques bug will go far and wide in search of treasures and a cycle began - more buyers led to more shops led to more buyers.

"Antiques people have a way of getting the word out," Sheppard says, unfolding a garishly patterned rug she was about to put on display. "Every day, it grew better."

Then came Aug. 13, 2004. Hurricane Charley took a surprise right turn, slashing through Central Florida and Arcadia's antique district. The 110-mph winds ripped off roofs, sending a cascade of water over old Raggedy Ann dolls and vintage linens. The entire facade of one building tumbled onto the store across the street, shattering windows and expensive glassware.

Charley's toll was uneven. Sheppard, whose store lost an awning and carpeting, was fully insured and reopened within a few weeks. Other dealers were closed for almost a year.

"A lot of people did struggle, and there was so much bad publicity that it hindered our coming back," she says. "It was portrayed that we were wiped off the map."

Business has rebounded to about 85 percent of pre-Charley levels, although rising gas prices are having an effect. Of even greater concern to some dealers, though, are the different businesses starting to creep in.

"It will eventually destroy this town," predicts dealer Robert Judd.

Leading the push to diversify downtown is Martha Craven, who owned an events planning business in Charleston, S.C., before retiring to a waterfront home in Punta Gorda. On a visit to Arcadia a few years ago, her husband Chuck saw a long-closed cafe for sale and announced he had always wanted to run "a little mom-and-pop" restaurant.

The Cravens purchased Wheeler's Cafe, which has since reopened. They are renovating another old building where they hope to have a 12-room boutique hotel ready by Christmas. And they live on the second floor of yet another downtown building they own. Once a Goodwill store, it now houses their Last Chapter Bookstore and Coffee House, which features a huge mahogany fireplace moved in five pieces from Boca Raton.

The Cravens' vision of downtown doesn't end there. Martha Craven would like to rent out space for small, start-up businesses.

"We need a dress store, a shoe store, we need a lot of things. I think Arcadia is getting ready to bust wide open right now. That means the place will change, but we hope it will change for the better."

Craven is among the leaders of Arcadia's chapter of the Main Street Association, a nationwide organization aimed at revitalizing historic downtowns. The group raised money to redo a city park and plant new trees along Oak Street, the heart of the antique district. But Craven complains that some of the antiques and collectible shops keep quirky hours that don't promote the steady flow of business that downtown needs if it is to flourish.

"We can't get the stores to cooperate," she says.

For their part, some of the antique dealers feel the Main Street Association has ignored them and their substantial contribution to the town. They say the association has shut them out of meetings and isn't devoting enough money to promoting antiques.

Six weeks ago, they formed an organization limited to antique stores. It already has 14 members - the town has 30 or so shops - and plans an appraisal day and auction Aug. 19 to raise money for an extensive advertising campaign.

Algie Didlaukies, who specializes in fine stemware at her shop, Glass Antiques or Not II, has membership in both groups. She moved from Dania in South Florida - "it wasn't interested in antiques anymore" - and hopes Arcadia will stay "the charming, quaint friendly town that it is."

Yet Didlaukies thinks the antique district could be better integrated with the rest of the community, especially during special occasions like the rodeo.

"Everyone should work together to complete the script for Arcadia that has now been established," she says.

City officials acknowledge they have no grand plan for downtown beyond preserving as many of its fine old buildings as possible. To that end, they credit Martha and Chuck Craven for their revitalization efforts. Although Arcadia's population of 6,800 has remained relatively flat, City Administrator Ed Strube agrees with the couple that the area is on the verge of a boom, one that will inevitably drive up real estate prices and affect the character of downtown.

The city's assessed value has already jumped 40 percent since Hurricane Charley.

"Your inland communities are going to be the next frontier because there is very little left on the coast," Strube says. "When you see the explosive growth happening southwest of us in Fort Myers and Collier County, that's all moving inland and it can only go so far."

What many call progress has already come in the form of Wal-Mart and other big-box stores. But Strube notes that Arcadia's downtown, like thousands of others across the country, suffered after Wal-Mart moved in and took much of the retail trade.

"The only types of business that might be able to survive downtown have a special market niche and the antiques stores seem to be filling that right now," he says. "Whether they can coexist with other businesses, we'll have to see."

Susan Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 30, 2006, 05:35:11]

Rift forms in school-impact refunds

Some builders refuse to give up money county would send home buyers

Daphne Sashin
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 30, 2006

KISSIMMEE -- Some recent home buyers looking to collect refunds on school-impact fees are running into builders who don't think their customers should get the money.

Osceola County and school-district officials are prepared to refund up to $1,815 each to people who bought homes between May 1, 2004, and Jan. 25, 2006, when the county's school-impact fee was being challenged in court.

Local government agencies have been holding in escrow millions of dollars in school-construction funds, which they will not release until after the Dec. 1 application deadline.

The county has made the "presumption" that homeowners are entitled to that money, though there may be exceptions where the builder should get the refund, said acting county attorney Kate Stangle.

"That presumption is based on evidence that was presented at trial, which demonstrated that in most cases, the builders passed those costs on to the home buyer," Stangle said last week.

To claim the refunds, homeowners must get their builders to waive their rights to the money. For a builder to get the refund, the home buyer would have to sign the waiver.

But at least two big builders aren't signing customers' forms.

Pulte Homes has threatened to sue the county if it doesn't receive a check for the $1.58 million it says it is owed in impact-fee credits. An attorney for the builder sent a letter to county and school-district attorneys this month, saying: "These costs were not specifically paid by any individual homeowner . . . these fees were paid by Pulte Home Corporation."

Pulte employees have told homeowners that the letters sent by the county to homeowners regarding refunds were sent to them "by mistake," said one buyer who visited the company's office to have his form signed.

A second builder, Engle Homes, signed at least one homeowner's form but has since stopped, said homeowners in the Oak Hammock Preserve off Pleasant Hill Road.

"Engle says they paid the impact fees," said Ann Wadkar, whose husband tried to get the company to sign their form. "They will not sign off."

A manager at Engle Homes did not return a message seeking comment, nor did Pulte's lawyer.

Impact fees are paid by the builder and typically hidden in the home buyer's contract, said Charlie Robertson, a custom builder in Osceola and president of the Home Builders Association of Metro Orlando, which brought the suit against the county.

Just because the fee wasn't specified in the contract doesn't mean the builder should keep the refund, he said.

"I have a problem, personally," Robertson said. "These guys are out here taking major cost cuts right now on houses, and yet they're going to fight some customer over $1,800."

So far, the county has received 1,200 applications for refunds from homeowners in unincorporated Osceola. The county didn't have an estimate Friday on how many applications were in dispute.

County officials are encouraging homeowners and builders to try to work out their differences between themselves. They have several options: agree one side is entitled to the money, strike a deal to split the refund, donate it to the school district, or take the matter to court.

Barry Rubin, who bought his Engle home in May 2005, sent his refund application to the builder as soon as he got it. The company returned it to him with an employee's signature. The company should be doing that for everyone, he said.

"They'd be better off with the public to sign off," said Rubin, 56. "The last thing they need is a bunch of homeowners suing them."

Daphne Sashin can be reached at dsashin@orlandosentinel.com or 407-931-5944.

Split road

Two huge projects are proposed in eastern Hillsborough to help bay area traffic - but opponents say that's not what's needed, and they're getting louder.

By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER and JANET ZINK
Published July 29, 2006

TAMPA - The Tampa Bay area's growth in the next 50 years will hinge largely on whether two mammoth toll road projects get built east of the region's populated areas.

Supporters say the projects will save the area from worsening gridlock that threatens the region's economic viability.

Yet as more details emerge, more officials and residents say the toll roads simply will spur more congestion in what are now rural areas. And many key supporters would stand to benefit from that growth.

"This opens up those areas to political pressure for development," said Bob Hunter, executive director of Hillsborough County's planning commission. "We need to be careful before we go any further and ask: Is this what Tampa Bay wants?"

Tampa City Council member John Dingfelder said he was disappointed by plans for the new roads.

"By building roads out there in the hinterlands, all we're doing is encouraging urban sprawl," he said.

Who will decide what the bay area needs?

Like other fast-growing metropolitan areas, the region lacks a political body of officials responsible for financing and managing a transportation system that crosses county boundaries.

So, in the coming months, as the toll projects get vetted publicly for the first time, an economic development group will try to fill the void. The Tampa Bay Partnership proposes an eight-county transportation authority with the power to coordinate and finance a regional system.

"We're watching everyone's lives grow dimmer because traffic is becoming so bad," said Joe Smith, who is leading the Partnership's effort to form an authority. "So we feel, 'Why can't we have the best model?' "

While business and political leaders across Tampa Bay agree a regional authority is needed, they differ on what its composition and mission should be. Much of that split is along urban and suburban lines.

* * *

After months of rumors, the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority confirmed Thursday that it was planning to build a sprawling beltway around the Tampa Bay area.

The toll road would extend from northern Manatee through eastern Hillsborough, west across southern Pasco and into Pinellas. Authority officials hope to start construction by 2010, with the first segments open to traffic in 2015.

The Florida Department of Transportation is planning a separate 1,000-foot wide corridor that will include toll roads and space for mass transit and utilities. This facility would stretch from Charlotte County north to Hernando County.

No cost estimate is available, and DOT officials say they don't know when they would begin construction.

DOT and the Expressway Authority officials say the roads are the best approaches to ease clogged roads.

But specifics have not been widely shared. Ali Atefi, a traffic engineer with Pasco's Metropolitan Planning Organization, said he hasn't seen extensive details about either project.

"These projects need to go through a lot of public discussion," Atefi said.

Hunter said he learned most of what he knows about the Expressway project from newspapers. He's concerned that its route overlaps the eastern boundary of Hillsborough's so-called "urban service area."

Counties support growth within urban service areas while trying to preserve the rural nature of land outside those boundaries.

But developers and builders have complained for months that available land is scarce inside the service area. They want the boundary pushed east.

Building a road along the east boundary and a second road farther east would bring extraordinary pressures to develop land in between, Hunter said.

What's more, building those roads would drain resources needed to improve Tampa Bay's lackluster transit system, said Pierre Mathurin, a director for the nonprofit Hillsborough Advocates for Improved Transit.

"Everyone says they want transit, but we're not doing the things needed to make transit possible," Mathurin said.

The roads have gained early support from members of the Tampa Bay Partnership, many of whom are developers, land use attorneys, home builders and engineering firms that would profit from more suburban growth.

DOT officials said they approved a $750,000 study on the corridor after prompting from the Partnership.

The Partnership has scheduled an Aug. 28 summit for discussion of both projects and a possible regional transportation authority.

* * *

The Tampa Bay Partnership's vision extends beyond toll roads.

In the last legislative session, Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, sponsored a bill to create an authority with financing power.

Crafted with the help of the Partnership, that bill proposed a membership comprising representatives from eight counties: Hillsborough and Pinellas - which have relatively dense urban populations - and Citrus, Hernando, Manatee, Pasco, Polk and Sarasota - which have more suburban and rural populations.

Outgoing Florida Sen. Jim Sebesta, who for six years chaired the Senate transportation committee, proposed a competing bill that would have created an authority weighted with transportation interests from urban areas.

Both proposals, introduced in the last weeks of the session, failed.

"I had grave concerns about (the Partnership's) plans last session," Sebesta said.

"There seemed to be a great emphasis on roads, where transit is such a tremendously important subject for the metropolitan areas."

Smith, who leads Partnership's push for a regional authority, said Sebesta's plan had "no merit." He said the Partnership promotes transit, but unlike the Sebesta plan, it offered a way to pay for it.

Misgivings about the roads and the Partnership's plan for an authority come from people who say more emphasis should be on mass transit.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio said she supports the idea of a regional transportation authority but said its focus should be on the densely populated Tampa Bay area.

"If you cast too wide a net with counties that have such different needs, it would be hard to come to consensus," she said.

In particular, she worries that the road building needs in suburban areas would steer money away from commuter rail in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties.

"If you keep putting money into roads, you're not going to have the money for mass transit," she said.

"When you are a community that is growing by the numbers we are in a state getting 240,000 new residents a year, you owe it to future generations to put in a better transit system."

Rep. Mike Fasano, who represents suburban areas in Citrus, Hernando, Pasco and Pinellas counties, sees it differently.

"I'm all for looking at it, but right now, every household that I know of owns a car," he said. "I don't want to use billions of dollars to create white elephants that aren't used."

[Last modified July 29, 2006, 02:04:50]

Griffin Heights at odds over new homes

By Bruce Ritchie
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

A patch of woods strewn with litter in Griffin Heights has become a battleground over the neighborhood's future.

Bryan Cureton wants to build 22 homes at Alabama and Joe Louis streets. He says the development would provide quality, affordable housing in an area plagued by crime.

Some Griffin Heights residents say new development is needed there. But they say Cureton's proposed homes are too closely packed together for families to enjoy.

"We know from our experience in the projects, when you put people right on top of each other, tempers are subject to flare," said the Rev. Charles Morris, pastor of Anderson Chapel AME Church. The church is a block away from the proposed development and owns a house adjoining the property.

Cureton & Thompson Investments LLC owns 24 lots that were established by the city in 1946. Each lot is 25 feet wide and 100 feet deep.

Cureton says he doesn't need approval to build houses, but he is requesting a variance from city regulations for residential zoning.

Those regulations require a 7.5-foot setback from the property line for detached homes, Cureton said. With 15 feet between the homes, that would leave only enough space on the lots to build homes 10 feet wide. He said nobody would buy homes that narrow because they wouldn't be functional.

Cureton is asking the Board of Adjustment and Appeal to grant variances to allow the homes to be built 6 feet apart. That would allow Cureton to build homes that are about 18 feet wide.

The homes, with up to 1,500 square feet of space, would sell for $125,000 to $145,000 each, Cureton said.

He submitted to the board an artist's drawing showing two-story homes with front porches. Two of the 24 home lots would be used for parking and a playground.

The board voted 5-0 on July 13 to grant a variance for the first variance application on one home. Approval is still required for variances on the other 21 lots.

Morris and some other area residents say Cureton should build fewer houses. That would provide yards for new residents and their children to play in, Morris said.

But Cureton says building fewer houses would cause the new home prices to increase. The lot lines for the property would have to be redrawn by the city. That would subject the project to new regulations that would require setting aside land for stormwater treatment.

Cureton said he could build duplexes on the property. He said the property originally was zoned by the city to allow row houses.

"The neighborhood thinks they are mad for us trying to do what we're trying to do," Cureton said. "They ought to see what the alternative is."

The new homes, he said, would replace a wooded area that's been a haven for underage drinking, drug use and littering. The property is covered with oak trees, underbrush and litter - piles of strewn drink containers and food wrappers.

Rodney Floyd, who lives at 1001 Clay St., said Cureton is trying to resolve neighborhood concerns. He is president of the Griffin Heights Neighborhood Association.

"I have cleaned up these lots over the last 10 years," Floyd said. "I'm tired of seeing what I see in there."

Morris, whose church owns a home adjacent to Cureton's property, dismisses the talk about affordable housing as a distraction from the real issue - the number of homes that can be built.

Allie Mae Taylor-Grant, who lives on Calloway Street, said she has mixed feelings about the development. She is vice president of the neighborhood association, which she said has not taken a position on the development.

"We welcome the development if it clears out some of the area and lessens the crime - yes," she said. "At the same time, we wish it were a design that was more suitable with what is already here."

Ranchers envision keeping land rural

Landowners on the rim of the proposed city of Destiny debate how to avoid spinoff sprawl.

Daphne Sashin
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 28, 2006

KISSIMMEE -- As a Delray Beach developer moves forward with plans to build a new city in south Osceola County, nearby ranching families are discussing ways to keep much of the surrounding land rural forever.

One of the owners says some land could be developed with the rest staying agricultural. Two other families say they are willing to discuss selling away their rights to future development.

Including Anthony Pugliese III, who last year bought 27,400 acres to build the city of Destiny, five property owners control 123,000 acres of contiguous property -- nearly one-eighth of the county -- between Kenansville and the Okeechobee County line.

If the property owners are able to work together, they can make sure the new town of Destiny doesn't trigger spinoff growth on the other tracts, said Harry Lerner, director of the real estate division of Latt Maxcy Corp., which still owns 40,000 acres west of the parcel it sold Pugliese. and has been meeting with neighboring owners.

"There's really an opportunity to set aside the land that everybody's wanting to set aside and determine what lands would be developed, and to do something truly self-sustaining," Lerner said.

"It would all eventually be tied together somehow."

Environmental and planning officials support the bigger-picture approach, saying they would prefer more property owners work together to design a single urban area -- with larger chunks of protected land -- rather than risk Destiny's neighbors succumbing to inevitable market pressures to carve up their properties for subdivisions.

"People are going to move into that area. There's no evidence that any part of Florida is not going to be an attracter for population growth," said Eric Draper, policy director for Audubon of Florida.

"I would far rather plan for the change than have the change be the result of land being broken up into smaller pieces."

The plans remain theoretical for now.

Pugliese has vowed to protect at least half of his property as open space, and under state guidelines, he could end up preserving more than that. To build Destiny, he plans to use the state's new Rural Land Stewardship Program, which allows developers to build towns in rural areas in exchange for protecting large corridors of open space and environmentally sensitive lands.

The stewardship program involves a complicated exchange of credits. But generally, developers get density bonuses based on the environmental and "social value" of the land they protect.

The more wetlands, aquifer-recharge areas and endangered-species habitats the developer preserves -- either on his own property or someone else's -- the more homes he is allowed to build.

Social value refers to what is important to a community, as working ranches may be in Osceola.

Once development credits are transferred off a piece of land, the state holds what is called a conservation easement to keep it from ever being developed.

Pugliese has a team of surveyors and biologists studying his property to determine how much development potentially could be allowed there.

If he cannot complete his vision using credits from his own property, he could buy the development rights from nearby ranch owners, a project consultant said.

That would give the neighboring ranches a financial incentive to remain rural -- which is what at least two of the families say they want.

"I'm personally very saddened that Pugliese has purchased land and will build a town out here, because we're agriculturally minded," said Tom Rue, who runs the 10,000-acre 711 Ranch for his wife's family, the Haymans.

"I understand that people have a right to develop their property as they see fit. If I could stop it, I would. But for our part, we would like to maintain an agricultural enterprise and preserve as much of old Florida as we can."

Likewise, the 31,700-acre Adams Ranch has no interest in developing its property and is "favorably inclined" to participate in a program that rewards it for staying in agriculture, while costing taxpayers nothing, said Peter Harrison, vice president of the ranch.

The Adams family is already participating in the land-stewardship program in St. Lucie County, where it owns about 17,000 acres and is selling the development rights to a builder who plans a 5,000-acre town.

"Stewardship is the way companies like us can survive . . . because truly high land prices are destroying agriculture and driving it out of Florida," Harrison said.

Until Pugliese figures out what he can do on his own property, he can't say if he wants to involve other properties in the land stewardship application, said Kissimmee planning consultant Bob Whidden, who is working on Destiny.

"We're trying to figure out what we have," Whidden said.

"Until you know the quantity and quality of the attributes of your property, it's just pure speculation to consider the possibilities of expanding the area."

Daphne Sashin can be reached at dsashin@orlandosentinel.com or 407-931-5944.

Big homes rise on 'Lovely Hill'

Will market support ultra-upscale?

Robert Sargent
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 29, 2006

MONTVERDE -- Far back on a hilltop near Lake Apopka, an army of construction workers is scurrying to complete a row of mammoth homes towering amid the surrounding trees.

They have fancy names such as Castlelina, Che Vita and Montebenichi. With an average size of about 9,500 square feet, each comes with an equally grand price -- up to $7 million or more.

Construction is the beginning of what the developer of Bella Collina, Celebration-based Ginn Clubs and Resorts, wants to be Lake County's most expensive private community, rivaling Orlando's swankiest addresses in Isleworth and Lake Nona. It also represents a turning point because the project must live up to years of anticipation.

Many lots were sold during big sales events in 2004 and last year for ultra-high prices. Deep-pocketed buyers from all over the world converged on the site about 25 miles west of Orlando to snap up lots -- many of them investors looking to cash in on skyrocketing property values.

But the frenzy of lot flipping raises questions about whether Bella Collina could leave some investors stuck with land that cannot be resold and that they are not interested in building on.

Lake Property Appraiser Ed Havill said he has concerns about the county's overall housing market.

"I think we're going to see a downturn in real estate," he said.

Experts are seeing a cooldown in home building after more than a year of soaring property values. At Bella Collina, some properties have been resold for big profits. One home that sold for about $400,000 two years ago was resold for about $1.4 million. Another bought for nearly $575,000 sold last year for $2.1 million.

Patrick Kelly, vice president of sales for Bella Collina, said the development has attracted many investors looking to resell properties. But he is confident that rooftops will fill the community within five years. Kelly said he expects home building to pick up when amenities such as the clubhouse and golf course are completed.

"It's time to start occupying the neighborhood," he said.

Some of the well-known owners include golfers Nick Faldo and Hale Irwin, and Lucille O'Neal, mother of basketball star Shaquille O'Neal.

Frank Royce, Havill's chief deputy, said Bella Collina has contributed tremendously to the area's soaring land and home prices the past two years as Lake County attracts more wealthy buyers.

Last year, more than 50 existing single-family homes in Lake County sold for $1 million or more, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association and the Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund.

Now 90 homes priced at $1 million or more are on the market, according to Realtors' reports.

The rise in big-dollar homes largely is due to rising property prices. Some say more large homes also are available -- something that may cater to the types of buyers coming into an area once dominated by citrus and retirement communities.

"The whole trend of age and type of people who come to Lake County has changed," Royce said. "We're building houses for affluent families now."

Despite the number of higher-priced homes, Royce said the escalation of property values has slowed somewhat since late last year. The surge in rapid sales also has dropped.

Kelly said, however, that what may slow down average home sales could have little effect on builders of large-scale custom homes.

"It's a different market. There are tons of middle-income type neighborhoods out there that have sprung up and thousands and thousands of $250,000 to $450,000 homes," Kelly said. "There aren't thousands and thousands of homes in the 6,000- to 7,000-square-foot range that have come on the market in the last year."

Lots of space is what many high-end home buyers are seeking, said Pete Benevides, who is selling a 25,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, nine-bathroom mansion in the Silver Lake area of Leesburg for $18 million.

"They are looking for square footage," Benevides said.

Amenities are another selling point.

Bella Collina has transformed 1,900 acres of former citrus groves, farms and vacant land into an exclusive, gated golf-course community slated for about 800 upscale homes.

One of two clubhouses currently is under construction -- a 50,000-square-foot complex styled after an Italian village with a pool, spa and at least three restaurants. It will accompany a championship golf course designed by Nick Faldo.

A 10,000-square-foot sports and equestrian center will include several sports fields and an indoor dressage arena.

Ginn originally paid more than $20 million to acquire land just south of tiny Montverde, population 1,157.

Eight custom builders are working on models in Bella Collina that will show off some of the community's biggest, priciest and most lavish homes, with prices estimated from nearly $4 million to more than $7 million.

One model home by PGM Builders spans 9,600 square feet with five bedrooms and eight bathrooms. The estimated price: about $4.6 million.

Another home from River Oaks Development includes more than 11,000 square feet with six bedrooms, seven full baths and three half-baths.

The homes will be open to the public for the Street of Dreams show from Oct. 14 to Nov. 26.

Robert Sargent can be reached at rsargent@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5909.

Wal-Mart Wetland Permit Challenged

By MIKE SALINERO The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 29, 2006

TARPON SPRINGS - Wal-Mart obtained the wrong kind of permit to destroy wetlands for a new store on the Anclote River, opponents of the development say.

A similar discovery at the site of a planned Wal-Mart in New Smyrna Beach helped stop development there, said Lesley Blackner, an attorney involved in the case.

"They will not break ground," said Chris Hrabovsky, an environmental activist and candidate for the state House of Representatives. "I am holding the keys."

Hrabovsky failed in earlier efforts to stop Wal-Mart in Tarpon Springs when the group Friends of the Anclote River, of which he is a member, filed lawsuits claiming the 204,000-square-foot supercenter would violate the city's land development plan.

A three-judge panel rejected one of the lawsuits in April, and the group gave up the fight.

Now, Hrabovsky said he has learned that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated its own procedures when it issued Wal-Mart the permit to destroy wetlands around the river.

Wal-Mart applied for what is known as a "nationwide permit," designed for projects that destroy less than half an acre of wetlands, Hrabovsky said. Wal-Mart's plans say it will fill 29 acres of wetlands.

The company should have applied for an "individual permit," which covers projects with larger wetlands impacts, he said. Individual permits require public notice and comment and can take longer to process.

John Studt, the corps chief of permitting in South Florida, said his Tampa staff checked the site and verified that less than a half acre of wetlands would be affected.

"There was an area that some had said they thought were wetlands," Studt said. "My staff made another trip out and said the site didn't support the kind of vegetation and hydrology for a wetland."

Wal-Mart's own engineering consultant submitted public documents at first showing 33 acres of wetlands on the site. Later, the same firm said there were 29 acres of wetlands. Either figure is well over the threshold for a nationwide permit.

Corps regulations also say nationwide permits cannot be used to fill wetlands next to rivers that are afforded special protections by state or the federal governments. Florida classifies the Anclote as an Outstanding Florida Water.

What's more, the type of nationwide permit Wal-Mart got is for transportation projects, such as roads, railways, or airport runways that cross navigable waters or adjoining wetlands. Federal regulations say this type of nationwide permit cannot be used for storage buildings, parking lots, train stations or aircraft hangars, according to documents cited by Hrabovsky.

Studt, the corps regulator, said the corps approved this type of permit because the only wetlands affected on the site were by an access road and a turnaround circle.

Wal-Mart spokesman Eric Brewer said the company worked with the corps for 20 months on the Tarpon Springs permit, enough time for the agency to verify information from Wal-Mart's engineering consultant.

"I don't think they just accept it," Brewer said. "I think they verify it."

Brewer accused Hrabovsky of challenging the permit to help his recently announced candidacy for the state House.

"He's made a political football out of it and that's unfortunate," Brewer said.

Blackner, the Palm Beach lawyer who challenged the corps on the New Smyrna Wal-Mart and on wetlands policies across Florida, said the agency has mismanaged the nationwide permit program.

"Once somebody puts in an application for a nationwide permit, the corps typically doesn't verify the acreage involved," Blackner said. "They simply take the applicant at his word. This is a way for the corps to ease its unbelievably heavy caseload."

In New Smyrna Beach, the corps issued a nationwide permit for a store after the company said it would destroy less than an acre of wetlands on the 29-acre site. Later, state officials discovered 10 acres were to be filled.

In that case, the corps rescinded the nationwide permit and told Wal-Mart to reapply for an individual permit. The retail giant complied, but the corps denied the permit.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

St. Lucie River water sample comes full circle

By Jason Schultz

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 29, 2006

STUART — Perhaps the most famous Gatorade bottle and its content in Florida environmental history found its way back home on Friday. But federal and county officials used the opportunity to say that the battle over the quality of the water inside the bottle is far from over.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson filled the bottle with dirty green water full of algae from the St. Lucie River in Martin County last August and used it as a visual aid during U.S. Senate hearings on the Water Resources Development Act earlier this year. Nelson held up the bottle of green water next to a glass of clear water on the Senate floor during hearings on the bill, which would give $1.2 billion to cleaning up the river and other parts of the Indian River Lagoon.

"I held up a glass of clear water and said this is what we want the St. Lucie River to look like, and this is what it looked like in August," Nelson said.

The bill passed the Senate earlier this month.

On Friday, Nelson dumped the water into a sewage pump-out station for boats to empty their septic tanks at the Southpoint Anchorage in Stuart.

"In effect its sewage," Nelson said. "This bottle has been to (U.S. Sen. Bill) Frist, (R-Tenn.) and back. And 11 months later it still has that green color."

The act would provide money for treatment areas to hold stormwater runoff and clean nutrients out of the water before it gets to the river, causing algae blooms and killing wildlife. Martin County Water Quality Chief Gary Roderick said the river improved over the winter, but recent rains have started to cause the condition of the river to worsen again.

The Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives still have to pass another bill appropriating the actual money to pay for the projects passed in the water bill. Roderick said the earliest the county could hope to receive federal money is 2008.

County Commissioners Sarah Heard and Michael DiTerlizzi said at the dumping ceremony that county officials planned to start lobbying congress for the river money soon.

DiTerlizzi said his commission and the St. Lucie County Commission would plan a joint trip to Washington D.C. to start lobbying in September.

Loggerheads lagging

The shrinking number of turtle nests has scientists concerned.

By Rachel Simmonsen

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Midway through sea turtle nesting season, several Florida scientists are wondering much the same thing: Where are all the loggerheads?

The number of loggerhead turtle nests on Treasure Coast beaches has dropped from the number reported this time last year, prompting some scientists to predict that 2006 will follow a statewide trend of decline that started about seven years ago.

"We believe it's a real decline that is statistically significant, not just a blip on the radar screen," said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in Melbourne Beach.

In Palm Beach County, there has been a continued decline in loggerhead nests in Boca Raton, said the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center's marine conservationist, Kirt Rusenko. He also said he believes it's part of a larger trend.

But Palm Beach County's environmental program supervisor said county beaches, including those in Jupiter and Ocean Ridge, have shown a slight rise in nests so far this season. And even though the loggerhead season is winding down, there may be one more spike in nesting, based on past seasons, program supervisor Leanne Welch said.

Statewide loggerhead nesting numbers generally grew from 1979 until 1998, when a record 85,054 nests were reported. But loggerhead nesting numbers now appear to be on a downward slope, declining in four of the past seven years. Since 2001, the statewide tally hasn't climbed above 69,657.

Last year, scientists were pleasantly surprised by the number of loggerhead nests on the Treasure Coast, which jumped slightly from the year before despite dramatic changes in beaches caused by hurricanes and beach restoration projects. By early September 2005, scientists had found 292 loggerhead nests at the St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park in Martin County; the year before, they had found 244.

Scientists had hoped it meant that loggerhead nesting was on the rebound after a few years of sluggish numbers. But many now think last year was an anomaly in a longer period of declining numbers.

"When you look at the 10-year average for loggerheads, this is the lowest year for us by far," said Ed DeMaye, a biologist who monitors about 12 miles of beaches in St. Lucie County.

As of Thursday, DeMaye reported 1,532 loggerhead nests, a 38 percent drop from last year. Of the past 10 years, 2004 is the second-lowest year on record, but even then, there were 2,278 loggerhead nests, DeMaye said.

On the southern half of South Hutchinson Island, which includes parts of both St. Lucie and Martin counties, scientists had counted 1,909 loggerhead nests by July 20, about 500 fewer than at that time in July 2005, according to Erik Martin, a senior scientist with the environmental firm Ecological Associates. On Boca Raton beaches, only about 400 loggerheads have nested this year, compared with an average of about 1,000 in previous years, Rusenko said.

Treasure Coast counters say it's unlikely this year's loggerhead numbers will improve much. Though nesting for all Florida species of sea turtles continues through September, loggerhead nesting typically tapers off after July.

"I haven't got any idea what is going on," said Pete Quincy, who monitors sea turtle nesting on about 6.5 miles of Jupiter Island beaches. As of Monday, Quincy had reported 2,232 loggerhead nests. By that date last year, there were about 2,400.

"The first couple of years, I would have thought maybe Lake Okeechobee has altered the water," Quincy said of the declining number.

But during this year's nesting season, water managers haven't made discharges from Lake Okeechobee, which often send a polluted, chocolate-colored plume of freshwater into the ocean.

It could be that adult loggerhead turtles have been affected by illness or some other environmental factor that makes them unfit for nesting. In late 2000, for instance, dozens of loggerhead turtles turned up with pneumonia along the coastline stretching between Indian River and Charlotte counties. By the end of the year, scientists there reported 100 loggerhead deaths, about three times more than usual.

Weather also might have played a role. Several years ago, extremely cold water moved near shore, which could have affected loggerhead turtles' food supply. Without enough lobster, clams and crabs in their diets, female turtles might not fatten up enough to produce eggs, Martin said.

Another possibility is that the decline in loggerhead nesting numbers is simply part of a longer-term natural cycle that scientists don't yet understand. Statewide data has been compiled only for about 25 years, Quincy said.

Whatever the cause, scientists say there still are signs to suggest a rebound could be on the horizon.

Scientists at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant have been capturing more juvenile loggerhead turtles in the past three years, which suggests they might see a spike in nesting numbers in five to 10 years, when those turtles come of nesting age, said Rick Herren, a biologist who monitors nesting in Indian River County.

Also, numbers for green and leatherback turtles remain fairly high.

Leatherback nesting numbers dropped slightly this year from where they were at this time last here. But "last year was the third highest year for them," Martin said. "Even though it's low this year, it's still in the realm of high nesting for leatherbacks."

Staff writer Antigone Barton contributed to this story

 

Developers to seek OK for nearly 3,000 homes

County will hear a slew of proposals next week.

A welcome reprieve on offshore drilling

Floridians may be spared oil rigs closer to our shores, but energy bills still fail to seriously address conservation and energy alternatives.

By TIMES EDITORIALS
Published July 29, 2006

Floridians can breathe a little easier over the way the offshore drilling debate has gone in the Senate. At Sen. Bill Nelson's insistence, the leaders of both parties gave formal assurances of protection for the Florida coast. That doesn't make the Senate bill a good response to the energy challenges ahead, but it is much less of a threat to the state's environment and tourism industry than the House bill.

Nelson, a Democrat, said he would oppose the Senate bill unless he got some guarantee it wouldn't be weakened in a conference with the House. The Senate bill - offered by Nelson's Republican counterpart from Florida, Sen. Mel Martinez - would keep offshore rigs farther off the coast and offer more permanence to the protection than the House bill.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., sent Nelson an e-mail message that promised: "I will not bring a bill back before the Senate that does not provide adequate protections to the state of Florida." While there might be some wiggle room in the term "adequate protections," Sen. Harry Reid, the minority leader from Nevada, sealed the deal. In a letter to Nelson, Reid vowed that if the House altered the Senate bill, he would "produce the votes to sustain a filibuster to prevent the passage of the bill when it would return to the Senate."

Nelson said okay, and Martinez has apparently signed on to the threatened filibuster should the bill be weakened. So there is a bipartisan defense in the Senate of stronger protections for Florida.

Of course, this isn't the only important issue in a debate on the nation's energy future. Senators from other coastal states don't support the bill because it only protects Florida's Gulf Coast. Everywhere else, a congressional prohibition on drilling close to shore ends in 2012, and those states want some assurances, too.

The biggest shortcoming of both the House and Senate bills is that neither deals seriously with conservation and the development of alternative fuels. In fact, the man who wrote the House energy bill, Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., is contemptuous of those concepts.

In the most dishonest and hypocritical comment on the subject yet, Pombo had this to say about drilling restrictions in the Senate bill: "I believe the 300-million Americans struggling to buy gas and pay electric bills and the 150,000 troops fighting in the Middle East deserve more than a nominal increase in domestic energy production."

That is ridiculous. Here is the truth: No amount of drilling in the gulf or any other part of America will have a significant impact on gasoline prices. The United States has only 3 percent of the known oil reserves in the world, a drop in the bucket compared with our consumption. The suggestion that we can drill ourselves to lower gasoline prices is a lie perpetrated by the oil industry.

Pombo's deliberate manipulation of American patriotism at a time soldiers are dying in a misguided war is despicable. The way to lessen the need for military intervention in the Middle East to protect foreign oil supplies is to stop our wasteful ways. The greatest threats to soldiers are self-serving politicians such as Pombo, who don't have the courage to tell Americans we must sacrifice to achieve real energy independence.

The outcome of this stalemate in Congress could be no action this year on offshore drilling, and that wouldn't be a bad outcome. Americans will still need a responsible energy policy next year, but maybe someone other than oil industry henchmen such as Pombo will be in charge. Then maybe the real day of reckoning can begin in earnest.

WAKING UP TO NOISE PAR FOR COURSE

When the sun rises over the Miami Beach Golf Club most mornings, birds chirp, bleary-eyed joggers swish by and the dew lifts gently from the course's rolling greens.

But that's only a woozy dream to some residents living along Meridian Avenue on the course's eastern edge who say they are more likely to be jolted awake by the blasting engine of a lawn mower than the rhythmic chime of a cardinal.

For the past year, residents have complained to city officials that parks and recreation workers at the city-run golf course have been cranking up engines and trimming greens and fairways as early as 5:30 in the morning.

''You wake up,'' said University of Miami professor Mihaly Lenart, who has owned his Meridian home for 16 years. He's also the co-chairman of the Bayshore Homeowners Association. ``In the winter we sleep with the windows open, so it's extremely annoying.''

Miami Beach has a noise ordinance making it illegal to start up engines on just about anything but road vehicles between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. But commercial and some public properties are exempt.

Simply, you buy a home near an airport, you're going to hear planes; you buy one near a golf course, besides avoiding balls flying through your window, you're likely to hear lawn mowers.

Finding a solution appealing to both sides is tough. Golfers shelling out between $90 and $185 for a round of golf should expect to tee off when they want. And they shouldn't have to hit off dirt piles or putt on pebbles.

Disclaimer: I live and breathe golf.

Still, hard-working residents should be allowed to sleep peacefully until a reasonable hour.

Lenart passed along several messages to his local commissioner, Saul Gross, who in turned passed them along to the director of parks and recreation.

There seemed to have been some type of détente reached about a month ago, when workers began tending holes toward the center of the course, by the southern edge near a commercial district or on the west side along Alton Road.

But residents say that only lasted about three weeks.

''We are trying to get the parks people to accommodate the residents,'' said Gross, a Miami Beach commissioner who doesn't live far from the golf course. ``I thought we had reached it.''

In a Feb. 14 e-mail addressing the Bayshore Homeowner Associations concerns, parks director Kevin Smith said that with the exception of rare tournaments, employees usually get to work around 6 a.m.

''We are doing our best to be good neighbors, but it has been a golf course since the early 1900s, and for the most part maintained daily since that time,'' Smith wrote.

That's true. But in the early 1900s many golf courses used sheep to keep their lawns trimmed. Shifting around a couple of workers so they begin their day as far away as possible from Meridian Avenue should not be that big of a deal.

 

Road Would Bypass Congestion

By RICH SHOPES The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 28, 2006

Transportation planners are pushing the most sweeping local road project ever: a 100-mile toll road without booths, linking Manatee, Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties.

The project would enable drivers in the suburbs and those passing through to bypass the current tangle of roads surrounding Tampa.

The Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority made the proposal public Thursday, suggesting work could start in as little as four years and wrap up by 2015.

The authority will present details Wednesday to Hillsborough County commissioners, then to commissions and agencies in three other Tampa Bay area counties.

New options for local drivers would include:

1. Brandon. Drivers could head east and pick up the beltway to Interstate 4 to go to Orlando or Daytona.

2. South Pasco. Residents could access two interchanges at the Veterans Expressway to head toward Interstate 75

3. North Manatee. The bustling region would get an alternative to I-75. Plus, truckers heading to Port Manatee could skip congested U.S. 41.

4. North Pinellas. Drivers wouldn't have to travel congested Interstate 275 to head east. Tourists would find an easier path in to Pinellas beaches.

"Every elected official and every staff member at all the agencies we have talked to have been supportive," said Martin Stone, the expressway authority's planning director.

Officials at the authority's offices in Tampa stressed that the project will require several years of study and could change dramatically from its working draft.

Whether the road is built will hinge on whether the authority can build bridges with transportation agencies and communities and juggle the twin demands of financing and engineering. Scores of public hearings would be required.

Then there is the cost: Executive Director Ralph Mervine and others at the authority refused to name a price. Judging by other projects, the figure could reach hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars or more with land acquisition - one south Hillsborough stretch is an unused railroad track - as well as engineering and construction.

Unlike most highway projects, however, this one would have a dedicated source of revenue with tolls to pay back loans.

Engineering Began 6 Years Ago

The project can be traced to a request six years ago by Kim DeBosier, then chairwoman of the expressway authority, to identify current and future road deficiencies and recommend solutions.

Engineers at the authority worked on the project for four years straight until April 2004, when an elevated segment of the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway collapsed. A year later, they turned their attention back to the beltway.

The road's aim, Mervine said, is twofold: to relieve congestion on I-75 and I-4 and to provide major new arteries to fast-growing communities in northern Manatee, eastern Hillsborough, southern Pasco and northern Pinellas.

Motorists would have access to the beltway at 29 interchanges. It would open with four lanes, two in each direction, but include enough land for future expansion.

Still undecided is whether to fold in State Road 54 in southern Pasco. An easement next to the highway might provide enough room for a road or elevated lanes.

In addition, the entire length of the roadway would feature the latest toll technology: high-speed digital video cameras to record a car's make, model and license plate.

A vehicle's information, or "fingerprint," would be stored electronically to be extracted later for billing purposes. Cars would not need SunPass devices nor would they need to slow down for the cameras.

Stone, the authority's planning director, said a similar system will be tested this fall on the new elevated lanes of the Selmon Expressway.

"Everything here has been carefully planned out and will be carefully planned out," he said.

Some Area Leaders Critical

Local officials contacted Thursday generally warmed to the beltway idea, but some, such as Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, argued that more emphasis should be placed on mass transit.

"Mass transit is really the future of our community. There can always be another roadway that could be built, but building new roadways isn't cost-efficient anymore," Iorio said.

Tampa Councilman John Dingfelder agreed, saying beltways sometimes create more problems than they solve. He cited Atlanta's unrestrained development, in part triggered by a beltway.

"The big loop roads, while they might alleviate some congestion, at the end of the day, contribute to urban sprawl," Dingfelder said. "Wherever you have the interchanges, you are absolutely encouraging sprawl development."

Linda Saul-Sena, a councilwoman and member of the county's Metropolitan Planning Organization, agreed.

"A major roadway in an underdeveloped area tends to act like a magnet that attracts growth," she said.

Hillsborough Commissioner Brian Blair gave the project a tentative thumbs up: "It's a great idea because it's paid for by user fees. It gives people another option and cuts down gridlock."

State Rep. Sandra Murman, a Republican candidate for state Senate in a district that might be affected by the beltway, said it could alleviate truck traffic on local streets.

"We have to do something," Murman said. "Anything we can do to relieve the congestion from all this growth is good. We need to build more transit corridors within these high-growth areas."

Mervine said the project doesn't close the door to mass transit. As for sprawl, he said, it's already here. The project targets areas destined for future growth.

"Everywhere you look, what you see is congestion."

Reporters Ellen Gedalius and Mark Holan contributed to this report. Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at rshopes@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7633.

Beltway planned to skirt Tampa

The Expressway Authority hopes the 70-mile toll road would ease interstate congestion and open in 2015.

By JANET ZINK and MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published July 28, 2006

TAMPA - Transportation officials are planning a sprawling beltway around the Tampa Bay area.

The toll road would run from the northern part of Manatee County, through eastern Hillsborough, west across southern Pasco County and into northern Pinellas. If plans proceed, backers say construction could begin in 2010 with the first segments open to cars in 2015.

Planners say they don't yet have a price tag for the project, which calls for 70 miles of new highway. But using current state road construction estimates of $50-million a mile, the new road could cost around $3.5-billion.

And those costs could climb because much of the land needed for the road veers close to or through suburban communities such as South Shore, Apollo Beach, Sun City Center and FishHawk Ranch in southern Hillsborough County.

The project is the latest proposed by the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority, an agency that just opened the first leg of the $450-million elevated lanes of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway a year behind schedule.

"It's critical that we improve our transportation system," said Tampa City Council member Shawn Harrison, who chairs the county's Metropolitan Planning Organization and hailed the project as a practical solution to worsening congestion.

But the proposal has skeptics.

"Our emphasis needs to be on mass transit, not additional beltways and expressways," said Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.

A preliminary traffic analysis predicts the road could divert tens of thousands of cars from Interstate 275 and Interstate 75, said Ralph Mervine, the Expressway Authority's executive director.

He described the toll road as the "backbone" of a road network with the county building the "ribs" leading to employment and population centers.

The plan will be presented to the County Commission on Wednesday.

The fast-growing areas in eastern Hillsborough and New Tampa will pose problems in acquiring the necessary land, planners said. But there is still some land that hasn't been swallowed up by homes.

Meanwhile, road construction and land costs are rapidly increasing.

"It's one of the reasons we're trying to go as fast as we can," said Marty Stone, the authority's planning director.

The authority hopes to determine costs by September.

Those costs, though, would likely be covered by tolls, Mervine said, and private partners will help finance the project. Mervine said companies interested in a public-private toll road in North Tampa have asked him if there are other projects in Hillsborough County with which they could get involved.

The project is still a long way from reality. The authority needs to get agreements with the four counties, secure financing and complete design and environmental studies.

Authority officials emphasized the route identified is preliminary.

"These are lines on a map, but they are not recommended lines," Stone said.

For months, the authority kept its project under wraps.

During a mid June meeting with residents in southern Hillsborough, county officials unveiled the plan but suggested details would be "hush-hush" until a later date, said FishHawk Ranch resident Dawn Chavez.

Secret or not, Chavez said residents concluded the road didn't seem to suit their travel needs.

"When everyone needs to go to Tampa, this would be the longer route," Chavez said. "Pretty much, the consensus was: 'You've got to be kidding me.' "

Earlier this year, Mervine told a St. Petersburg Times reporter the Expressway Authority was focused on completing the elevated Crosstown lanes and not planning other projects. After an authority spokeswoman said she had no information about the rumored project in early July, the Times made a public records request, which was made available Thursday.

Mervine said he didn't want to unveil the project until they had more details on it but decided to release information because so many had heard about it.

At Wednesday's meeting, the authority will ask commissioners for the okay to begin planning with Hillsborough's Metropolitan Planning Organization and other counties.

"A lot of this could be done in Hillsborough County," Mervine said. "We don't have to go into Pasco and Pinellas County. We'll see how those county commissions feel."

The beltway project is the latest in a rapidly growing inventory of long-range transportation plans that promise to ease local and regional mobility woes with more toll roads.

Recently, the Expressway Authority announced it will build a long-awaited east-west toll road in New Tampa connecting Interstate 275 to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. It's estimated to cost $150-million.

Also in the works is a plan by the Florida Department of Transportation to build a 150-mile long corridor from Charlotte County, through eastern Hillsborough, to the northern edge of Hernando. Much of that project is planned for tolls.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Partnership, an economic development organization, is seeking to form a regional transportation authority that can build its own projects.

Joe Smith, a member of the Partnership, said his organization agreed to support the Expressway Authority's plan after assurances from Mervine that there would be a mass transit component in the beltway corridor.

The project has another powerful supporter in commission Chairman Jim Norman.

"We can't continue widening roads," Norman said. "The costs are astronomical. If we can take a loop system into undeveloped land, and put in access points, then it will cost less and the permitting will be faster so it can get built sooner."

Times staff writer Saundra Amrhein contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 28, 2006, 05:44:30]

County to set date for Hickory Hill hearing

By HERNANDO TODAY STAFF


BROOKSVILLE — County commissioners are expected Tuesday to set a date for a public hearing to discuss the comprehensive plan amendment and development of the regional impact report for the proposed 1,750-home Hickory Hill subdivision in Spring Lake.

Jake Varn, the attorney representing the developer, pressed commissioners at this week’s county commission meeting to set the date so the process could move forward.

The Florida Department of Community Affairs is currently reviewing the project and has 60 days to submit its findings to the county. However, Withlacoochee Regional Planning Council officials are also waiting to look at a report put together by the developer, Sierra Properties LLC of Tampa, and were waiting for the public hearing date to be set before their review and final recommendation could begin.

County Commissioner Nancy Robinson said the board is moving ahead, “according to the standard procedures and process that our legal counselor has (talked about).”

Challenge to supercenter in Alachua fails

By AMY REININK

Sun staff writer

The Suwannee River Water Management District has denied High Springs' request for an administrative hearing about a permit to allow Wal-Mart to build a supercenter in Alachua.

Tom W. Brown, an attorney representing the district, wrote in a letter to the city that its request for a hearing had come after the deadline for challenges had passed, and that the request "did not constitute a petition for an administrative hearing."

But city officials say High Springs' fight to protect its groundwater isn't over, and said the city will try to work with the district and with Wal-Mart to get stricter stormwater standards for the site.

The fight started last month, when the water management district approved an environmental resource permit for Wal-Mart to build a Supercenter at U.S. 441 and Interstate 75 in Alachua. Wal-Mart still needs to seek permits from the Florida Department of Transportation and city approval.

Alachua County and High Springs both took steps to challenge the permit. Alachua County agreed to drop its challenge after Wal-Mart agreed to tougher stormwater controls, like covering its garden center to prevent runoff from fertilizer and increasing the amount of pervious surface on the site.

But High Springs city officials said the agreement Wal-Mart forged with the county didn't guarantee protection of their city's future water supply.

City Manager Jim Drumm said the city will likely follow the county's path and seek to reach an agreement with Wal-Mart. But he said if that doesn't work, legal action could be next.

"Obviously, there are some legal options we're looking at," Drumm said. "What we'd really like to do is talk to the district staff and to the Wal-Mart officials putting the application in to see if we can work out some sort of resolution about how to treat the stormwater on the site. I know they were able to resolve the county's issue that way, so we're hoping maybe they'll be able to work with us as well."

Amy Reinink can be reached at 352-374-5088 or reinina@gvillesun.com

Study: Sewage spills foul waters

The nonprofit Clean Water Fund says the state hasn't improved in reporting the mishaps.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 28, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - The state has failed to improve its record of reporting sewage spills into Florida waters and along beaches, an environmental group said Thursday in a follow-up to a study it released last year.

The 2005 study by the nonprofit Clean Water Fund was called "Are We Wading in Waste?" and the follow-up is titled "Are We Still Wading in Waste?" The answer, according to the study, is yes. It shows the state accounted for 44-million to 51-million gallons of wastewater and sewage spilled last year.

"This is only a drop in the bucket of what may really be happening," said Kathleen Aterno, the fund's Florida director, in a statement.

"Not only has little changed in how spills are being reported, it appears that no one, including the state, counties and the public, is getting the full picture of how much sewage is actually spilling in our communities."

The study notes that a 250,000 gallon sewage spill that closed beaches in Boca Raton and Boynton Beach last year is nowhere to be found in the Division of Emergency Management's "State Warning Point" data, although it had been highlighted in the fund's 2005 study.

In other instances, the state simply listed "unknown amounts" for various spills.

Division of Emergency Management spokesman Mike Stone had no immediate comment on the study itself, but he said the data is collected to help state and local agencies respond quickly to the spills rather than for record-keeping purposes.

"That's like the 911 dispatcher," said Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Anthony De Luise. He said it is illogical to consider it a complete record of spills.

The Boynton Beach-Boca Raton spill was promptly reported to a state agency, the Department of Health, De Luise said, but he acknowledged it did not go through the Warning Point system as required.

The study makes several recommendations for improving data collection, which is the basis of public health warnings. They include keeping information on overflows at a central location in each county and using unified and standardized reporting forms for all utilities.

Those and other suggestions would help counties provide accurate spill information to citizens through "right-to-know" mailings similar to those utilities send customers with information on drinking water quality.

"The people of Florida have a right to know about these water quality and safety issues," Aterno said. "This report is another wake-up call to the state and utilities."

[Last modified July 28, 2006, 01:24:57]

The Florida Times-Union

July 28, 2006

Better parks, less runoff all part of plan for river

By MARY KELLI PALKA
The Times-Union

A new 10-year, $742 million cleanup and access plan for the ailing St. Johns River is part intensive care treatment and part preventive medicine.

Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton and JEA Chief Executive Officer Jim Dickenson were among city, state and federal officials who signed "The River Accord: A Partnership for the St. Johns River" Thursday.

No one said the plan would cure all of the river's ills. But they all agreed the $700 million committed for cleanup will help dramatically reduce the amount of nitrogen and other nutrients going into the river, where it causes algae blooms, smothers plants and kills fish.

The River Accord A $742 million plan to clean up the St. Johns River was unveiled Thursday.

JEA will contribute $200 million and the St. Johns River Water Management District will contribute $150 million for wastewater treatment and reclaimed water projects, including:

Shutting down six of JEA's wastewater treatment plants. Upgrading JEA's remaining plants to remove more nitrogen from wastewater before it is dumped into the river. Installing pipes and upgrading treatment plants throughout Northeast Florida to make more reclaimed water and treated wastewater available for irrigation. $200 million in federal, state and city funds will be used for removal of septic tanks. That will include: Removing 21,000 failing septic tanks from 22 neighborhoods. Forming a mitigation bank where builders who want to add new septic tanks will pay toward the removal of failing septic tanks. Issuing operating permits for septic tanks and requiring regular inspections. Increasing the setback for septic tanks located near water sources to more than the state-required 75 feet. $150 million in city funds will be used for stormwater retention and changes in fertilizer for outdoor maintenance. That will include: Updating the city's Master Stormwater Management Plan in an effort to better clean stormwater going into the river. Creating more regional retention ponds rather than smaller ponds to handle stormwater runoff. Requiring the use of more environmentally friendly fertilizer throughout Jacksonville. Using more environmentally friendly fertilizer in city parks. $42 million in federal, state and city money will be used to create more access to the river. That includes: Adding river taxis through the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. Upgrading Huguenot Memorial Park. Upgrading the Southbank Riverwalk Adding a bike trail from Nassau County to Huguenot Memorial Park. A system of tracking the cleanup will include: Tracking the amount of sediment going into the river. This will be done by the University of North Florida. Compiling an annual State of the River report, done by UNF and Jacksonville University. Creating a steering committee to track progress. 

Another $42 million will go toward increased river access.

Peyton said the initiative represents the largest single investment in the lower basin, which stretches 2,750 square miles from parts of Volusia and Putnam counties to Jacksonville.

Peyton called the river one of the Florida's "astonishing assets."

"For too long, we've taken from it. Now we'll give back to it," he said Thursday.

The plan includes $200 million to close six JEA wastewater treatment plants and to upgrade other plants; $150 million to increase the availability of treated wastewater for irrigation, $200 million toward removing 21,000 failing septic tanks and $150 million to improve the treatment of stormwater runoff.

Jacksonville University marine biologist Quinton White called the accord a great start but said it could cost well over $1 billion to fix all of the river's problems. He also said accord partners should go slow and spend the money strategically.

St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon said he's happy people are acknowledging the problems and talking about solutions. But he said more needs to be done.

For instance, he said, there was no talk of protecting wetlands, which would help shelter habitat.

The accord will help reduce the amount of nitrogen going into the river. But, he pointed out, nitrogen discharge needs to be eliminated altogether.

"We've got to abandon the idea of thinking the river can just receive all of this," he said.

White said one of the challenges is educating people about the complexity of the pollution problem without causing panic or total frustration. And it's helping people realize that they are the problem.

"JEA handles what we give it," White said. "When we flush, we want it to go away, but we don't want to pay for it."

JEA will use $200 million to close six wastewater treatment plants with older, less-effective technology and upgrade its remaining plants to remove more nitrogen from the water to meet new regulatory standards. After wastewater is treated in JEA plants, about 10 percent is reused for irrigation purposes. The rest goes into the St. Johns River.

JEA will also upgrade its plants and install pipes to make more treated water - about 40 percent - available for reuse, Dickenson said.

The more wastewater used for irrigation, the less goes into the river. It also means less drinking water being used on lawns.

It's that double benefit that moved the St. Johns River Water Management District to commit $150 million to make more wastewater available.

That money will go toward 30 projects throughout Northeast Florida. The end result: a reduction of 1 million pounds of nitrogen going into the river each year, said David Graham, chairman of the district's governing board.

Wastewater isn't the only problem facing the river.

Stormwater runoff, which includes the nutrients from fertilizers, needs to be treated before it goes into the river.

The city, along with state and federal officials, committed $150 million for more regional retention ponds and upgrading existing ones.

Plus, there are about 85,000 septic tanks in Duval County. About 21,000 of those are failing. The accord includes $200 million to help remove the tanks to reduce fecal coliform bacteria going into the river.

It also includes a plan to inspect the remaining septic tanks and increase the setback for septic tanks near water.

In an effort to cap the total number of septic tanks, Peyton wants to make builders who add a septic tank to an at-risk area to contribute to a mitigation bank. The money would go toward removing failing septic tanks.

To help monitor the accord, a steering committee made up of city, state and federal officials will meet regularly and update Peyton on the progress. Armingeon said there needs to be more citizen involvement to help monitor progress.

mary.palka@jacksonville.com (904) 359-4104

The Florida Times-Union

July 28, 2006

River arose, mayor sank to prove it

Several hundred people gathered on a barge for what Mayor John Peyton called a "special day" in the history of the St. Johns River.

There were politicians, past and present. There was music and speeches and an unplanned appearance by some dolphins.

Not bad, as news conferences go. But there was no mayoral water-skiing, just a nod to a predecessor and another steamy day, 29 summers ago.

"Hans Tanzler could not be here this morning," Peyton told the crowd. "We will miss him. We are not going to have a re-enactment of the ski show."

Tanzler, the city's mayor from 1968 to 1979, was invited to attend. He's spending some time in the mountains in northern Georgia. I called him Wednesday to ask about the river, his role in cleaning it up and, of course, his water-skiing.

Tanzler, 79, began by talking about growing up in Riverside, wading into the water and catching bass. "There were some magnificent, huge grass beds where you could have yourself a ball."

There also was raw sewage. Lots of it. It's hard to fathom today but once upon a time most of the city's toilets flushed into huge pipes that poured into the river. By 1968, there were 77 "outfalls," dumping a combined 18 million gallons of untreated sewage into the river every day.

The theory for decades - the solution to pollution is dilution - was being disproved every day. The grass beds were disappearing. And you didn't need any environmental expertise to see the river was a mess. You just needed eyes. And maybe a nose.

So Tanzler's first order of business as the city's first mayor after consolidation was the river. About 150 miles of pipe diverted raw sewage to treatment plants. It cost $153.3 million and took seven years, but in 1977 the city closed the last of the outfalls.

Mike Tolbert, an aide to Tanzler, recalls the mayor coming into his office one day and saying: "We're going to close the last outfall this summer, so be thinking about a press release."

Tolbert looked at him and said, "A press release?" He had bigger things in mind.

They talked about having the mayor swim across the river, before eventually settling on the stunt that will forever be a part of Tanzler's legacy.

Tolbert recalls telling Tanzler: "You can throw a switch and say the river is clean but nobody is going to believe it. But if you ski it, you're most likely going to fall. And if you don't die from something in the water, people are going to believe it."

So with tens of thousands watching from the banks of the river, Tanzler donned a swimsuit and hopped on a barge with skiers from Cypress Gardens.

"The boat revved it up and away we went, over the edge of the barge," he said. "All the little Tinkerbell girls went gracefully skittering across the top of the water. I hit it like I was the anchor to the Queen Mary and disappeared."

He reappeared and they tried again. The result was the same. Finally, they tried starting from in the water and this time the mayor got to his feet, leading to one of the city's iconic images.

Ask Tanzler about this legacy and he chuckles.

He has had some rough times lately. He lost a leg. He lost his wife. "The love of my life," he says. But sitting in the mountains, he sounds happy to reminisce about the grass beds, the fish and, yes, the water-skiing.

"After all these years ... if you ask people what did Hans Tanzler do, they say he's the one who skied the river, wasn't he?" he said.

Yes, he was.

And we should remember him for that. Just don't forget why he did it.

mark.woods@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4212

 

OCALA - An exhaustive six-month study released Thursday says the future of affordable housing in the Marion County area is bleak unless diligent steps are quickly enacted by public and private initiatives.

Identifying problems and suggesting solutions for a tightening residential home market is the backbone of the "2006 Housing Study: A Framework for Affordable and Workforce Housing," a 51-page directive unveiled before about 30 people attending a public gathering at the Marion County Library Headquarters.

The study was produced by the Marion County Public Policy Institute, a volunteer consortium of local leaders charged with offering a life-enhancing vision for the Ocala area.

Though PPI members admit some of their findings and recommendations can be debated, they feel certain facts cannot be disputed.

The study notes that the median cost of an existing home in Marion County rose 44 percent to about $160,000 in 2005, and more than half of all local families don't make enough money to afford such prices without assistance. Per-square-foot prices for new construction have also soared in the last few years of a since-cooled real estate boom.

And besides causing a crunch for those already living here, a lack of affordable housing makes it difficult to attract needed workers to satisfy the demands of a rapidly growing community.

"If there are nurses, teachers and police officers who can't afford housing here, then we have a serious situation," said study committee chairman Pete Tesch, president and CEO of the Ocala/Marion County Economic Development Corp.

When approached after the hour-long presentation, Tesch agreed that it is important to note that the group's recommendations went beyond challenges of working-class families that needed assistance, and included help for low-income families as well.

"It's a two-prong approach," he said.
Paramount to solving problems, the study says, is freeing up funds in the William E. Sadowski Affordable Housing Act, a 1992 law enacted to provide affordable housing assistance through the collection of a tax on document stamps. More than $900 million in such funds are available for the next fiscal year, but a bill signed by Gov. Jeb Bush in May limits the total outlay to $516 million - more than half of which is designated for recovery efforts in hurricane damaged regions.

"Even with that bill being signed, about $350 million is left to be spent," said PPI committee member Mike Sizemore, who is asking for statewide community pressure to get the remaining funds released. "Here is an opportunity for everyone in the community to get involved and implement key recommendations - we are going to have to come together with enthusiasm. It's one of the top issues that we will face as we grow."

In addition to ever-widening gaps between worker wages and housing costs, the study asked for overhauls to regulatory barriers that impede revitalizing substandard residential areas, and to provide impact fee incentives to builders and developers. Additionally, the group suggests the implementation of inclusionary zoning, a sometimes controversial concept that requires a certain amount of new construction to fall in the affordable housing and/or low-income range.

"Local government needs to ensure that we have the mix of housing that is needed, and that the developers that want to provide that kind of housing are given help," said Jim Simon, a PPI committee member who heads Ocala's Community Programs Department.

Proponents say inclusionary zoning would ensure available affordable homes in many parts of the county - not just in areas "known" for such housing - thus providing workers opportunities to live closer to their jobs. But the acceptance of such policy would require a change of heart for some members of the community, one committee said.

"It needs to be embraced by the citizens," said John Browning, a local builder who is also president of the Greater Ocala Community Development Corp., a local nonprofit group that supports economic development activities in historic West Ocala. "We get many roadblocks, the kind of roadblocks from people when they go before the city council or county commissions and say, 'not in my backyard.' "

Since Ocala's housing prices are still among the most affordable in the state, members of PPI admit that other parts of Florida face stronger challenges.

"This gives us an opportunity to take care of ours in advance," Tesch said.

PPI next plans to guide the formation of the Affordable Housing Advisory Board, which would work to oversee the implementation of study recommendations within a 12- to 18-month period.

Visit www.ppiofmarioncounty.cf.edu for more information, or to download a copy of the study.

____
Ryan Conley may be reached at ryan.conley@starbanner.com or (352) 867-4123.

 

High schools brace for crowded halls

The county's high schools expect record attendance. Citrus High will put classes in storage areas.

By EDDY RAMIREZ
Published July 28, 2006

INVERNESS - Principal Leigh Ann Bradshaw cut right to the point in her e-mail Wednesday to the school superintendent.

Help, she wrote.

When Citrus High School opens in less than two weeks, an estimated 1,727 students are expected to walk through its doors. That's a record for the school, which counted 1,505 students in May.

Superintendent Sandra "Sam" Himmel called Bradshaw after receiving her e-mail. On Thursday, they met to discuss how to accommodate the crush of students.

"When you're already crowded," Himmel told the Citrus Times on Thursday, "100 more students can make a huge difference."

Bradshaw could not be reached for comment.

Fall enrollments at the district's two other high schools are also expected to reach new highs. Lecanto High, which traditionally has had the largest student population, expects to receive 1,728 students.

Crystal River High will remain the least populated school. About 1,400 students are expected to show up there.

The projected enrollment figures assume that every freshman, sophomore and junior who attended the schools last year will return.

Most years, the number of students who show up on the first day of school is lower than the projected enrollment.

Chuck Dixon, the district's new director of growth management and planning, said Citrus High has enough space for the students expected to arrive.

That doesn't mean, though, that the hallways won't be even more crowded come Aug. 8.

Like Lecanto High, Citrus already has several lunch periods scheduled throughout the day because the cafeterias are too small to accommodate all the students at once.

Himmel said Citrus could be forced to add another lunch period. The school also will have to use storage space as classrooms, a common practice at crowded schools.

This year, Citrus has also hired more teachers and added a fourth assistant principal in anticipation of more students.

Dixon said the influx of students at Citrus High may be because of younger families who are moving to the Highlands area, where housing is more affordable.

The school also draws some students from the fast-growing Central Ridge area, although most teens there attend Lecanto.

Himmel said that the district has been able to keep pace with growth in the county. It is building a new elementary school in Citrus Springs and added prefabricated concrete classrooms at CREST and Lecanto High.

But as Citrus continues to grow, Himmel said, the School Board will have to make a decision about limiting the number of students at the high schools.

That day might not be far from now. In August, a private consulting group is expected to issue a report on the needs and priorities at every school.

Himmel has stressed the need to offer high school students a more challenging, meaningful education. Key to those efforts, she said, is teachers building relationships with students.

"The bigger you get, you can't do that," she said

'08 growth plan offers school relief

Charter facilities would help alleviate crowding

Nin-Hai Tseng
Sentinel Staff Writer
July 28, 2006

TAVARES -- A plan to better manage residential growth moved closer to a final draft Thursday as county, city and school officials agreed on several key points to avoid school overcrowding.

"We're honing in on it," School Board member Larry Metz said.

The plan is part of a state mandate that Florida counties must adopt by December 2008. Lake is one of six counties chosen to come up with a blueprint for the others to follow for school concurrency, which essentially promises there will be enough classroom space before new developments are approved.

Lake officials agreed that new charter schools can be used to help meet the goal as long as the buildings are constructed to state standards so the school district has the option of taking over if a charter goes out of business.

Initially, district officials had reservations because they worried about what could happen if a charter closed but wasn't usable as a district school.

"It's good news for all municipalities that are interested in charter schools," Leesburg Deputy City Manager Jay Evans said. "Certainly it is one of the key ways our city can meet concurrency."

An area southwest of Leesburg is expected to undergo unprecedented growth. For the past year, city officials have made plans to run their own charter schools independent of the School Board.

Also Thursday, Lake officials agreed that student enrollment will be limited to schools' permanent capacity, not counting portables. However, if a school's cafeteria has more space for children than the classrooms can handle, portables could be counted to some extent as part of the building's capacity.

That number is critical because developers could be required to pay an extra fee to help pay for new classrooms if a project causes a school to exceed capacity.

"I think the plan looks pretty good," County Commission Chairwoman Catherine Hanson said. "There was a lot of work on both sides."

A few more aspects of the plan will still have to be worked out, such as how much developers will have to pay if their project overcrowds a school.

Deputy County Manager Gregg Welstead said it has taken the county longer than expected to send the plan to the state for review. July 3 was the target date, he said.

"I'd rather meet the intent of the law than rush," Welstead said.

A final meeting between city, county and school officials is scheduled for Aug. 23 to discuss the final details.

Nin-Hai Tseng can be reached at 352-742-5919 or nhtseng@orlandosentinel.com.

Developers to forge ahead with Orlando condo project

Jack Snyder
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 28, 2006

Braving a cooling real estate market and volatile construction costs, developers of the 24-story Monarch condominium tower in downtown Orlando said Thursday they will launch sales in September with an eye toward starting construction as quickly as possible.

"The faster we can stick a shovel in the ground, the better off we'll be," said David Reed, president of the Reed Cos. of Altamonte Springs and a partner in the project.

The Monarch would rise from a site on Liberty Avenue between Jackson and South streets. A downtown exit ramp for the State Road 408 expressway connects to South Street almost directly across from the tower site.

The developers bought the property last year and cleared away a church there in November.

Since then, Reed said, the partners have been analyzing construction costs and the state of the local condo market, which is showing signs of easing from the past year's torrid sales pace.

"We'll be looking for 15 percent down payments and hard contracts" from buyers, Reed said.

The developers are also getting firm bids from contractors for the tower's construction. "Costs have been rising, but we see some stabilization," he said.

If the sales campaign is successful, Reed projects a 24-month construction schedule, with a possible opening in early 2009.

The tower's 179 condos would range in size from one-bedroom models to two-story penthouses. Prices will start in the high $300,000s but range upward to more than $2 million, Reed said.

A sales center is going up on the site now, the developer said. Coldwell Banker The Condo Store will handle marketing and sales.

The development company, Jaymor-Reed Development Inc., includes Reed as well as William Myers and Fab Lucchese, both of the Jaymor Group, a Canadian real estate company.

Reed said he connected with Myers and Lucchese in 1999 when they did the 250-unit second phase of Golf Terrace Apartments in Winter Springs. Since then, the three have been partners in student-housing developments in Orlando, Tampa, Tallahassee and Raleigh, N.C., and have built a luxury condo high-rise on Hutchinson Island in South Florida.

During the frenzied real estate market of recent years, 29 condo towers with a combined 7,000 to 8,000 units have been announced for locations in downtown Orlando. Most of the projects have been postponed, however, because of the softening market and because of fast-rising construction costs.



Jack Snyder can be reached at 407-420-5094 or jsnder@orlandosentinel.com.

Five blocks from her home in Liberty City, Carrie Meek saw empty lots where her legacy was supposed to be.

First in the Florida Senate, then in the U.S. Congress, Meek had cajoled, begged, beseeched to provide affordable housing for the working poor back home.

But even before The Miami Herald's investigative series this week revealed a monstrous misuse of that money, Meek could see what wasn't there on those forlorn Liberty City lots.

''I just didn't know the depth of it, '' she said Wednesday. ``That was shocking.''

The waste, negligence, cronyism, nepotism and possibly fraud exposed by The Miami Herald's Debbie Cenziper amounted to millions squandered by the Miami-Dade Housing Agency. Developers borrowed money for projects never built. The loans were never repaid. Buyers were allowed to flip low-cost homes for a quick profit. Insiders and relatives enjoyed sweet deals.

But even before she read the details, Carrie Meek, who retired in 2003 after 10 years in the U.S. House and a decade in the state Senate, could drive five blocks and see that the working poor had been betrayed.

PERMANENT FUNDING SOURCE

In 1983, civic activist Martin Fine, a longtime champion of the working poor, went to state Sen. Meek with his proposal for a surtax on commercial real estate transactions. The money would provide Miami-Dade County a permanent source of funding for affordable housing.

''We house our animals, books and paintings,'' Fine told local politicians. ``But we have not developed the financial capacity to house our poor.''

It was a tough sell in the Florida Legislature, but it passed. And for years, Miami-Dade was a national model for affordable housing.

''I'm saddened by what I've read this week but let me just say that the program worked very well for so many first-time homeowners,'' Fine said Wednesday.

The surtax collected $275 million the first 20 years and financed 3,500 mortgages for low and middle-income Miami-Dade residents. An additional 2,400 loans were arranged to rehabilitate old housing. The surtax financed the reconstruction of 11,000 rental units -- though forensic accountants may be checking how many of those units were real and how many were phantom transactions.

At first, the surtax went only into low-interest mortgages, but in 1986 the program was expanded to finance construction deals for new projects. It was the construction deals, with such little safeguards and oversight, that eventually corrupted an idealistic endeavor.

$35 MILLION GRANT

Meek had also shepherded a $35 million grant through Congress to fund reconstruction of the decrepit James Scott housing project. Cenziper reported that seven years later, more than half of that money has frittered away with little to show for it but those empty lots.

``I begged. I had to practically crawl on the floor to get that appropriation. And I caught hell for it. They called it a turkey,''Meek said.

Instead of a turkey, the project has come to look like a criminal enterprise.

Miami-Dade was the only county in Florida that adopted the affordable-housing surcharge. Fine said Wednesday that as the affordable-housing crisis spread across the state like an epidemic and fast-growing communities like those in Broward and Monroe find they can't provide housing for teachers, policeman, firemen, government workers, he was getting more and more inquiries about his 1983 innovation.

But the most brutal effect of the Miami-Dade scandal may stop those calls. All the successes will be forgotten. Meek worries that politicians in other communities, with no real interest in the needs of the working poor, will now have an excuse to reject affordable housing proposals.

''I'm so disheartened,'' she said. ``This was my legacy.''

Beltway Around Tampa Proposed

By RICH SHOPES The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 27, 2006

The Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority is drawing up plans to build a beltway east of Tampa.

Officials at the authority say they are planning a presentation Wednesday to Hillsborough County commissioners. They would not elaborate on the plan.

County Commission Chairman Jim Norman, who has spoken with the authority about a beltway during the past year, gave this possible route for the loop:

Starting at the junction of Interstate 75 and Interstate 275 in northern Manatee County, it would run east and then north, between Brandon and Plant City, at some point intersecting Interstate 4. It would turn west to the Suncoast Parkway in Pasco County, south on the parkway to Interstate 275, over the Sunshine Skyway and back to I-75.

The loop would run about 120 miles, about 70 to 80 miles of it new construction.

"I've been envisioning something like this for years," Norman said.

He said he wouldn't know details about the proposal until the presentation next week.

Norman said he hopes the beltway would provide relief to motorists in Sun City Center, Plant City and Brandon as they grapple with trucks and congestion. The highway could offer alternatives to busy Interstate 75 and Interstate 4, he said.

At least some of the road would be a tollway, which could speed the start of the project, he said.

Construction still is probably a decade off, but Norman suggested some work could be performed earlier, and in sections if the authority, Hillsborough County and Manatee and Pasco counties agree to work together and if rights-of-way can be secured.

Norman said once word gets out about a proposed highway, property values in affected areas could skyrocket and boost the cost. That might explain why the expressway authority has stayed quiet the past six months about its proposal.

"From the Hillsborough perspective, we wouldn't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to widen all these roads," he said. "We could build a new road on what is still pasture and go north and south."

Shawn Harrison, a Tampa city councilman whose district might come close to the beltway, said the proposal makes sense for commuters, and it might be affordable if the highway includes tolls.

"We need it as soon as we can get it," Harrison said. "It's obviously going to be a major, major construction project, and it will require cooperation of multiple counties ... to make this a reality. This will benefit everyone in the Tampa area."

Officials at the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization, which makes recommendations on traffic projects, said they didn't know enough about the proposal to comment on it.

The same comment came from the Florida Department of Transportation and the Florida's Turnpike Enterprise, the agency that maintains the state's 450 miles of toll roads.

DOT is doing a separate study that includes a similar beltway plan.

State Sen. Jim Sebesta, a St. Petersburg Republican and chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said the authority's plan would likely mirror whatever recommendation comes from DOT.

The authority is finishing construction of the $400 million, reversible upper deck of the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway connecting Tampa and Brandon.

"The expressway authority would be the logical group because of who they are and where they are," Sebesta said. The reversible lane project has partially opened and soon will be complete. "It is logical for them to look for another project right now."

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at rshopes@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7633.

Don't shortchange national parks

By TIMES EDITORIALS
Published July 27, 2006

America's crown jewels are its national parks and forests. So it is a national shame that the federal government is shortchanging our irreplaceable natural and historical heritage, particularly at a time when it is under assault from a variety of threats.

Park officials get only two-thirds the amount needed to protect the resources under their care, according to a study by the National Parks Conservation Association. Typical was a decision in 2004 to give park employees a 4.1 percent raise but provide only a 1.5 percent boost in revenues to pay for it. "As a result, some parks had to close visitor centers or opt for less visible but equally damaging decisions to reduce the amount of money spent on science and resource management or maintenance of park infrastructure and historic buildings," the study found.

Meanwhile, parks and forests face disturbing new threats, according to the New York Times. In Nevada's Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest in the lower 48 states, rangers are assaulted by snowmobilers who resent restrictions. The forest is used as a public dump. As urban sprawl and its problems move closer to forests, it's not uncommon for rangers to find the bodies of murder victims or stumble on marijuana harvests or meth labs.

Then there are the environmental challenges. Yellowstone National Park suffers from poor air quality that is worsening in nearly every category. The effects of global warming are the latest concern. Western states are warming faster than the rest of the country and the results are obvious: widespread drought and wildfires.

Funding and enforcement haven't kept up. Nearly a third of U.S. Forest Service enforcement manpower has been lost over the past decade. Today there is one officer for every 733,000 visitors to national forests. Yet Forest Service funding in the current House appropriations bill would provide $63-million less than last year.

National parks are also under siege, with diminished services reported at the Everglades, Great Smoky Mountains and Yellowstone National Parks, among others. When adjusted for inflation, spending for park operations has declined over the past four years, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

Admittedly, there is more competition for federal funds with two wars and increased spending on homeland security. But the investment is worth it when you consider nearly 275-million people visit national park sites each year. That's a lot of votes for better funding of our parks and forests

Birds lose to bull in biologist's report

Letter to the Editor
Published July 27, 2006
Re: If Wood stork matters, we won't know, July 17

Both my husband and I were outraged at biologist Kathleen Barrett's convenient report omission in her wood stork sighting in the Werner-Boyce Springs State Park, where a developer plans 362 townhomes. She first wrote that the property was within an 18.6-mile "core foraging area" for wood storks, then omits that, deciding that it could have been flying anywhere since they forage up to 18 miles from their colony.

How in the world did she determine that the bird was just flying by? She stated that the bird prefers open shallow water and the tall grasses are not conducive to the bird. Well, perhaps she'd better visit where we live, in the next community by Leisure Beach, where we see wood storks fishing across from our dock and many neighbors' docks, too. I guess they are just flying by, but need a quick snack.

There is an old saying, to follow the money trail, and it is so true with the developers, politicians and County Commission staff responsible for making decisions. Why did the County Commission reject the request by Mr. Byle to review the matter? Do these people really care about our wonderful Nature Coast or just the money?

Barrett says her concern is always for the animal ? Perhaps her mascot should be the bull.

Carrie Hiller, Hudson

Home sales down by half this year

Through June, 4,345 homes were sold in Pasco, compared with 8,516 in the same period in 2005. The median price is also down.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published July 27, 2006

Only half as many homes were sold in Pasco County in the first six months of this year compared with the same period last year, figures released Tuesday by the county's property appraiser show.

For the first time in five years, the county's median home sale price inched down from $247,125 last year to $246,700 currently.

It's not because it's summer.

This year marks a dramatic decline in growth. It gives a warning for next year's county tax rolls, which this year grew 29 percent.

But market watchers also believe the decline is a market correction that belies healthier job and demographic trends.

"Supply has caught up with demand," property appraiser Mike Wells said. "When that happens, sellers have to become realistic, and what they're asking for their product. The investor has moved on. ... I do think that builders are probably competing with investors that they sold houses to a year ago."

Between January and June, 4,345 single-family homes were sold in Pasco, compared with 8,516 in the same period in 2005.

The big drop dates back to January, when 670 homes were sold compared with 1,267 in December. Sales clawed back up in March through May, but never breached the four-digit barrier in any month this year.

Last year, every month except January saw sales numbers in the four digits.

"It used to be that things slowed down in summer," said Dewey Mitchell, owner of Prudential Tropical Realty in Trinity. "But in the last 10 years or so, things didn't slow down even in summer. But now ... you can feel it, and it's not because it's summer."

Half the single-family homes offered in Pasco are currently selling below $246,700, a slight dip from $247,125 in 2005, county figures show.

For the past five years, the county has seen the indicator rocket only upward from $131,079 in 2001. The market peaked between 2004 and 2005, when the median price jumped from $158,270 to $247,125.

As prices soften, market watchers say investors are getting burned off. That is an educated guess because the number of investor homes is difficult to quantify.

About a third of Pasco homes are listed as nonprimary residences, Wells said. That number has grown from 26 percent in 2001 to 30 percent currently.

It could suggest that investors are still a significant portion of the market, but, as an indicator of investor numbers, nonprimary residences are only an approximation. Some homes are not listed as primary homes simply because of a lag in paperwork, or because people buy them as second homes.

"These numbers are for single-family homes both old and new, whereas investors are typically for new houses," Wells said. "The 4 percent point spread you see is probably reasonable. If I can produce the spread for just new homes - which I can't - that spread would be higher."

This year's dramatic fall in home sales accounts for all homes on the market.

For the smaller subset of new homes, the first quarter still saw steady growth until a dip in May brought year-to-date figures into negative territory, compared with the same period last year.

But central Pasco still ranks as a major production area for new homes.

Meadow Pointe, Ballantrae and Wilderness Lake Preserve still rank among the top 10 communities for "housing starts" in the Tampa Bay area, according to a report released Wednesday by the Metrostudy group in Tampa.

Housing starts indicate actual construction, but they don't count homes that later have their permits pulled, Metrostudy's Tony Polito said.

Pasco's annual figure for housing starts through May still shows 14 percent growth, but this belies a 6 percent drop in the second quarter this year, Polito said.

Job growth in the region and demographic changes should still temper any pessimism about the market.

The Tampa Bay area ranked third in accounting for Florida's job growth, trailing only the South Florida and Orlando markets. The Tampa market added 31,200 new jobs in the last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Unlike places like Chicago, the number of people turning 25 and 55 here increases every year," Polito said. "These are potential home buyers."

Interest rates are still on the rise, but they shouldn't be seen as the culprit behind the slowdown, industry experts say.

"Long-term mortgage interest rates ... should remain below 7 percent through the balance of 2006," said Mike Inselmann, Metrostudy's president, in Wednesday's report. "This mortgage rate outlook seems quite benign in historical terms, and prior housing cycles have done quite well with rates much higher than they are now."

"If they stay in single digits, it's still a bargain," Wells said.

With national growth figures pointing to general economic health, the word is still that the housing trend is more correction than collapse.

"I think it's business as usual," Wells said. "Hundreds of houses are being sold, and still people are buying. It's just that builders can't be as demanding now. It's good for the consumer, but we're not going to have 29 percent increase in the tax rolls next year. There will still be an increase, but not as big."

Chuin-Wei Yap covers growth and development in Pasco County. He can be reached at (813)909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

Committee Approves Subdivision

By JO-ANN JOHNSTON The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jul 27, 2006

DADE CITY - The Development Review Committee approved a Tampa couple's plans to put a 14-home subdivision on a vacant lot inside the city limits.

Garnett and Lori Craig plan to build The Cove subdivision on Main Avenue and 15th Street on a 2.75-acre lot. That's a little more than a block east of the city's Watson Field Park, in a neighborhood with a mix of single-family homes and apartments.

A number of the new home developments coming into Dade City will be outside the city's traditional boundaries, in areas recently annexed by the city. This project, by contrast, makes use of land in an existing city neighborhood.

The Craigs hope to start construction this summer and have the homes completed during the first quarter of 2007.

The subdivision will offer homes in two different sizes. Each home will have at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two-car garage, Garnett Craig said. He hopes to sell them for about $200,000.

The Craigs plan to install a stormwater retention pond in the housing development. They also will pave the part of 15th Street, currently a dirt road, that leads into the planned complex.

Garnett Craig is an engineer and Lori Craig is a real estate broker originally from Dade City.

The couple also is planning another housing development in Dade City.

Reporter Jo-Ann Johnston can be contacted at (352) 521-3062 or jfjohnston@tampatrib.com.

County sends Wekiva River plan to state

Thursday, July 27, 2006

TAVARES - The Lake County Commission, along with the citizen board working on its new comprehensive plan, might be trying to protect environmental lands, but developers say that without the data and science to back it up, it will fail.

On Tuesday, the commission voted to send its comprehensive plan amendment on the Wekiva River Protection Area to the Florida Department of Community Affairs for approval. The proposed amendment severely limits development in the some 79,000 acres designated by the amendment.

Restrictions on open space in the protection area were already well beyond what is required in the rest of the county, but the new amendment tightened them further. It requires up to 50 percent open space in residential developments, not counting wetlands, retention areas, residential lots, active recreation areas or golf courses.

Though environmentalists were happy with the open space requirements, attorneys representing developers and landowners throughout Lake County were against it.

Cecilia Bonifay, who has represented developers across the county - most notably SugarLoaf - said the policy was overreaching and not based in science.

"There has not been enough analysis given to know how this will affect properties in the area," Bonifay said, adding that she and others plan to contact DCA about the lack of information.

Density limitations could also hurt property owners looking to sell to developers. In certain parts of the protection area, densities will be limited to one house per 40 acres and increased no higher than one unit per 10 acres. The highest density available will be in the Mount Plymouth-Sorrento area, at a maximum density of 5.5 units per acre.

But one retraction upset some environmentalists. The amendment dropped all references to the Wekiva-Ocala corridor. Lake County Chief Planner Brian Sheahan said it should be dropped because there was "insufficient data" to support its inclusion in the amendment. The corridor, connecting Wekiva to the Ocala National Forest, should have been left in, said Charles Lee with the Audubon of Florida.

Lee said there would be nothing lost by leaving the corridor protected and up for DCA to decide if it was valid. By not doing it, Lee said the commission was giving the developers a "leg up."

Planners promised the corridor would later be incorporated into the new comprehensive plan, if and when data can be found to support its addition.

But Sheahan said the outcome was the a "workable compromise" between the opposing factions. DCA is expected to return its review and suggestions, which will be incorporated into the new comprehensive plan.

Clermont annexes Black West
Council rezones property for planned 1,000-unit development

Thursday, July 27, 2006

CLERMONT - If the Black West development is approved, it will be part of the City of Clermont.

On Tuesday night, the city annexed and rezoned the property where the 1,000-plus home development is proposed.

The City Council voted 4-1 to annex the 574-acre tract. The annexation will give the city control over how the land is developed.

"Now that they're in the city, they will have to come to us with their exact plans and what they have in mind for the property," said Councilman Keith Mullins.

After the meeting, attorney for Center Lake Properties Cecilia Bonifay said the company is very pleased with the results.

Councilwoman Elaine Renick cast the lone dissenting vote. She said she was concerned about school capacity, but was satisfied that the developer had agreed to school concurrency. Renick said her "no" vote was based mostly on worries about the city's ability to provide utility and public safety services to the area.

When Black West first came before the Clermont City Council in March 2005, rezoning and annexation were denied because of the effect it would have on area schools.

But over the past two years, the applicant has had several meetings with Lake County School District's planning staff to address the school issue.

"We do not foresee any problems with meeting school concurrency," said Bonifay.

Mullins said he is confident of the developer's plans to work closely with the Lake County School Board on school construction.

"We have a good group of people here," said Mullins. "I think it's going to be a definite asset to the community. It will be a nice neighborhood."

Unlike many swaths of land where developments have been proposed, the Black West property was not sold by its former owner to a high bidder. The Carusso family has owned the tract for the past 70 years, and that gave some peace of mind about the plans.

Mullins said it was made evident to the council that the family is not just trying to flip the property for a profit.

Before Clermont could annex the whole parcel, the county had to amend its joint planning agreement with the city. The Lake County Commission agreed to the JPA modifications earlier Tuesday, freeing the council to annex the entire property.

Most of the Black West property, which lies north of Summit Greens along County Road 50 - commonly called "Old 50" - was already part of the county-city joint planning area, which gave the city freedom to annex it. But until Tuesday, 140 acres of it were not.

In addition to the JPA amendment and the annexation, the utility annexation agreement and the comprehensive plan amendment were approved as well.

"Part of the provision with the approved annexation was for a planned unit development for the project that would include both residential and commercial usage," said Bonifay.

The next step for Black West is to bring the details of their development plan to the city council for negotiation.

"I'm sure they'll (Black West) be the subject of many more discussions when we come back with all our plans," said Bonifay.

Renick, who during the meeting said she felt she was out on a lonely limb by herself, said she felt council was basing their decision on what Minneola or the county might do if Clermont did not annex the property.

Renick said she just could not agree with them doing that.

"I really understand the discussions and respect the decision of my fellow council members, but I cannot base my decision on what others may or may not do," said Renick. That's not the way to go and I do not feel right doing that."

Crews damage county wetlands area

By JEFF ADELSON

Sun staff writer

A "misunderstanding" resulted in crews working for Alachua County uprooting ground cover and damaging trees on protected wetlands without a permit near the county Health Department.

County officials pledged to fix the damage, which occurred last week while crews were clearing trees that were damaged or knocked down during the 2004 hurricane season from a less-than one-acre wetland area on the SE 24th Street property.

"I assure you, we will make the restoration," County Manager Randall Reid said.

The county failed to follow procedures that require permits from the St. Johns River Water Management District before working on a protected area and damaged a property they were obligated to keep up, said Kathy Fanning, natural resources program manager for the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department.

"This area was to be protected, that's our biggest concern," Fanning said. "We have a requirement that this area be maintained."

Crews working on the property, employed by a private contractor, had only done a few hours of work on the property last week before stopping after the damage was noticed over the weekend, Alachua County Facilities Manager Charlie Jackson said.

The incident was reported to the Environmental Protection Department Monday and St. Johns began investigating Wednesday, said Teresa Monson, a spokeswoman for the district.

County staff consulted with an environmental firm before beginning their work, said Jackson, who blamed the damage on the site and county's failure to get a permit to a miscommunication.

To prevent similar incidents in the future, the county could formalize policies about how to deal with work on environmentally-sensitive sites, he said.

"Our intent was not to disturb the wetlands," Jackson said. "It was to get the large trees out and do what was right."

Jeff Adelson can be reached at 352-374-5095 or adelsoj@gvillesun.com

Placida land deal is nearly finalized

Charlotte County "in good shape" to preserve land from condo boom.

ENGLEWOOD -- Charlotte County officials have reached a tentative agreement to purchase and preserve 65 acres of green space along the rapidly growing Placida Road corridor.

"We do not have an ironclad contract, but we're in good shape now," said Commissioner Tom Moore, whose district includes Englewood.

A recent county estimate for the land put the price at $8.5 million, although officials declined to give the cost outlined in the agreement.

"We want to pay whatever is fair and equitable," said Paul Payette, the county's director of real estate services.

Once finalized, the deal will be sent to the County Commission, which is scheduled to vote on the contract at its Aug. 22 meeting.

Two weeks ago, the County Commission instructed its real estate staff to begin negotiating with the Dunwoody family. The Miami family has a long history of selling its Englewood properties to the county for parkland.

Much of the West County park complex used to be land held by the family. In past years, the county purchased about 300 acres from the family for its Oyster Creek Regional Park, which is being constructed along San Casa Drive.

And Cedar Point Environmental Park, 115 acres bordering Lemon Bay, was a tract owned by the Dunwoody family.

The current parcel is about two miles south of that 400-acre cluster of parks. Home to eagles' nests and gopher tortoises, the parcel borders the northern bank of Buck Creek for more than a quarter mile.

The property is zoned for more than 100 condos along a corridor where developers are rapidly transforming green space into luxury condo towers.

"It's got some terrible zoning on it right now," said Moore, referring to "planned development" zoning that allows for commercial uses in addition to condos.

The zoning makes it an attractive purchase for a developer, but the Dunwoody family wants the land preserved.

The family first partnered with the Lemon Bay Conservancy, an Englewood nonprofit organization dedicated to land preservation.

Last year, the conservancy asked the state for a $6.6 million grant to purchase the property, but the state turned down the request in the fall.

Like the Lemon Bay Conservancy, the county plans to ask the state, through its Florida Communities Trust, for millions of dollars in grants to help defray the cost to the county.

Lack of roads leaving many at dead end

County Manager George Burgess demanded the resignations of two more top officials at the Miami-Dade Housing Agency on Wednesday, bringing to six the number of administrators ousted in the past three days in what has become the biggest shake-up in decades at the beleaguered agency.

The agency's second-in-command, Rodolfo Perez, was asked to resign, along with finance and administration chief John Topinka. Burgess also demanded the resignation of the Housing Agency's most recent director, Alphonso Brewster, who had been working in the county's budget office since April.

The moves come on the heels of an investigation published this week in The Miami Herald, House of Lies, that found the Housing Agency wasted millions of dollars on failed projects and pet programs while allowing developers to walk off with money for affordable houses that were never built.

Even when houses were built, the newspaper found, some developers bypassed the poor and sold to investors who reaped quick profits.

With the resignations of the two administrators Wednesday, Burgess has removed almost every department head at the Housing Agency and said more changes are coming.

Though Brewster was working in the county budget office, he ran the Housing Agency in recent years and was deputy director under longtime chief Rene Rodriguez when much of the questionable spending took place.

Documents and interviews with agency officials show many of the decisions were made by Rodriguez, who did not return repeated calls from The Miami Herald.

In one case, The Miami Herald found, Rodriguez directed millions of dollars to a private, nonprofit group that he was overseeing as president and chairman, including a $1.5 million advance for an elderly housing project that has never been built.

`CONTRITE'

Burgess said he did not blame Brewster for the spate of poor decisions but said that he was not satisfied with the progress at the agency after Brewster took over in 2004. Brewster resigned in April and moved to the budget office.

Cynthia Curry, special advisor to Burgess, met with Brewster on Wednesday and said the veteran administrator was ``contrite.''

''[Brewster] acknowledged the breadth of what has been written about in the last several days and he just really felt responsible,'' said Curry, who was brought in earlier this year to track the money flowing to affordable housing projects.

Brewster could not be reached for a comment.

Curry said the county's moves this week are an attempt to ``change the culture of the organization.''

On Monday, Burgess put Housing Agency official Emma Duffie on leave pending a disciplinary hearing, the first step toward termination. The next day, he fired two other administrators, including Tawana Thompson, head of the agency's troubled construction loan program. A third was put on administrative leave.

Curry said the local office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will lend employees to the Housing Agency's depleted staff.

OUTRAGE

The Miami Herald's series has sparked hundreds of e-mails, letters and calls to county officials, many calling for criminal investigations and demands for land and money to be returned. Politicians from Tallahassee to Washington have urged local officials to clean up the agency.

Three South Florida members of the U.S. House of Representatives -- Lincoln Díaz-Balart, Mario Díaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- sent a letter to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez on Wednesday saying, ``We are deeply saddened and frankly shocked by what we have read. . . . It will be extremely difficult for us to continue calling on our colleagues in Congress to support funding for an agency that appears to be so woefully mismanaged.''

The newspaper found the Housing Agency pledged more than $87 million between 2003-2005 to put up 72 developments for the poor, but about 40 percent of the projects were canceled and others are delayed for months, even years.

To account for the money, Burgess has transferred oversight of the county's affordable housing construction loan program to the finance department, which will examine the projects and propose fixes.

Burgess also said he plans to cancel the building of the Housing Agency's new headquarters in South Miami and is trying to recoup $5 million the agency put towards the project.

 

Plan for Growth Raises Hackles

By Tom Palmer
The Ledger

HAINES CITY -- The news that massive changes are coming to the landscape of some still-rural areas of northeast Polk County was not well-received by many in the crowd of nearly 200 people who showed up at City Hall here to hear it.

The proposed changes are so widespread and generated so many questions that the Polk County Planning Commission called an unprecedented pre-hearing work session Tuesday night to air the issues and to give the public an opportunity to ask questions before the hearing.

Those changes, which go to the Planning Commission for a formal vote on Aug. 8 and to the County Commission for action on Aug. 9, involve a 16,000-acre area between Davenport and Ronald Reagan Parkway. The proposal is to convert what aerial photographs depict today as a mosaic of pastures, woods, citrus groves and sand mines into a maze of industrial parks, high-rise apartment buildings, offices and shopping centers.

M.P. Patrick, a longtime local resident, would have none of it.

"When is enough enough?" he asked, complaining about problems ranging from strained water supplies to overcrowded schools that already plague the booming area.

Dixie Kennedy complained the plan would destroy the rural setting many people pursued in buying homes in the area.

Planners had ready answers to those concerns.

Actually, the area has been planned for urban growth since the county growth plan was adopted in 1991, said Merle Bishop, the county's growth management director.

"This just takes it to the next step," he said.

Bishop said the plan has been evolving, explaining that initially 3,500 acres of the 16,000 acres under discussion was classified as rural agricultural land, which allowed little development because there were no plans for water, sewer or roads in a large part of the area.

Today there are plans to extend utilities and to build an entire network of new roads, and none of that rural land is included in the new plan, he said.

The drive behind the change was to increase the retail, office and industrial sections to bring jobs to the area, which was quickly becoming dominated by residential development. There were concerns the area would become a bedroom community for Orlando.

Commissioners considered that a problem because residential growth generates more demand for county services than revenue to pay for those services.

To reverse this trend, commissioners wanted to increase the amount of industrial and commercial development so that residents would be able to work as well as live in Polk County.

To make that happen, the plan calls for an additional 79.7 million square feet of industrial, office and warehouse space, 32.7 million square feet of resort development and 12.4 million square feet of commercial retail development.

Nevertheless, the proposed plan would increase the projected population of the area because the residential areas are being remapped from low-density residential to medium- and high-density residential.

The results, according to the county staff report, include:

•  44,963 new residential units, which will generate an estimated 17,000 new students -- 6,300 more than projected under the current growth plan -- in an area where most of the schools are over capacity.

•  An increase of 60,000 additional vehicles on the road during peak traffic hours. The current road system is inadequate to handle existing traffic. Proposed road improvements and the construction of new roads to ease traffic problems are years away.

Polk County's Bishop said the improvements are supposed to be in place in time to meet the new demand.

But Planning Commission member John Ryan said some questions are still unanswered.

"One thing I'd like to hear (at the Aug. 8 hearing) is what stage the School Board is in school planning in this area," Ryan said.

Bishop said there will be more details to come on how development will occur here.

The plan mapping out allowed land uses will be followed next year by changes in the development regulations that will provide more specifics.

County planner Ana Martinez-Hubert said some parts of those new regulations may be available by the end of the year when this plan comes back to the County Commission for a final hearing Dec. 6 for formal adoption.

That second hearing will come after the plan is reviewed by the Florida Department of Community Affairs, which issues a report containing its comments on the plan and any suggestions for improvements.

Planning Commission Chairman Augie Fragala also told the audience that regardless of what the growth map allows, when developers go through staff review and there's not enough water, sewer, road or school capacity to serve their project, the project won't be built.

Haven Needs New Water-Use Plan

By Joy Cochran
The Ledger
WINTER HAVEN -- After pumping more water in June than permitted by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, city officials must now come up with "Plan B" for future development while they wait to see if their application for more water is approved.

City officials have yet to develop that plan.

Two of the city's wells, located in the Lake Winterset area, have been pumping more than five times their daily permitted capacities, according to records provided by Swiftmud.

"We had some high months in April, May and June," said Kim Hansell, the city's utilities services director. "June was the first month we've gone over."

In June, citywide, the city reported pumping 10.9 million gallons per day based on a 12month rolling average, according to Swiftmud records. That was 300,000 gallons over the permitted level.

In response to the overpumping, Swiftmud will send the city a letter requiring officials to check numbers and meter calibrations, said Michael Molligan, a Swiftmud spokesman.

"After they do that kind of review, if everything checks out, they're going to have to work out with us a plan to stay within their permitted quantities," Molligan said.

Swiftmud officials will also visit the two wells that are exceeding their individual permitted levels, Molligan said.

"We want to see if there are any issues of environmental impact from overpumping," he said. "That's always one of the issues you are going to be looking at."

May was the highest month for water usage at both the wells. At the Winterset Gardens well, permitted to pump 460,000 gallons per day, the daily average was 2.3 million gallons. In April, 1.4 million gallons per day were pumped from the well, and in June, 1.5 million gallons per day.

At the Winterset well, permitted to pump 245,000 gallons per day, the average usage in May was 1.3 million gallons per day. In April, the daily average was 689,784 gallons per day, while June's average was 819,767. The site visit at the two wells will occur within 30 days, Molligan said.

Hansell blames the overpumping on irrigation for lawns and growth.

"It was the irrigation, absolutely," she said. "In the last three months the irrigation pumpage was high because it was so dry. With the rains, we expect it to go down."

Much of the irrigation occurs at new home construction, Hansell said.

The city applied to Swiftmud for a water use permit modification in January, but the permit hasn't been approved yet.

The city is asking for an increase from the current permitted 10.6 million gallons per day to 12.3 million gallons per day.

City officials had hoped to already have the modification permit in their hands. But that hasn't happened.

"We had hoped to have that approval by July," Hansell said. "Our best hope now is September for the permit increase."

There's really no way to know if or when the city's permit application might be modified, said Swiftmud's Molligan.

"We ask questions and they provide answers," Molligan said. "That process goes back and forth. It all depends on the quality of answers we're provided."

The process is back in the city's hands to provide answers to Swiftmud's questions.

"Assuming we haven't exceeded our permitted capacity, and today we have, we're going to have to regroup," Hansell said. "It's a new day (in water use permitting). We do need to come up with a plan for the event the permit is delayed."

The responses are due at Swiftmud by Monday or the application will be denied.

"We will have a permit in hand in the near future that will cover our immediate needs," said Dale Smith, the assistant city manager.

Even if the modification application is approved, the city's original water use permit must be renewed in 2009.

Ramsey Campbell

Why widen road in forest?

Published July 24, 2006

 

 

Projects garner opposite results
One development near Sorrento is OK’d by county; other is rejected

Wednesday, July 26, 2006


TAVARES - Plans for two large residential developments came to different ends Tuesday. The developer who worked with local residents had his development approved, and the one who threatened haphazard sprawl if he didn't get his way did not.

Sorrento Village, a 312-acre development south of State Road 46 and north of Adair Avenue, has been opposed by neighboring residents who didn't want high-density development and increased traffic congestion in the area. Sorrento Village's 866 homes would also have an impact on local schools, which - except for Mount Dora High School - are already over capacity.

Leslie Campione, who represented 230 residents in the Mount Plymouth/Sorrento area, said she negotiated with the applicant, Real Property Acquisition Group, until Saturday night. That work turned 33 letters of opposition and 128 signatures on a petition into support as the developers promised to cluster high-density homes on the north end of the project and leave 50 percent open space on the south end. Also, the project will have to follow guidelines being developed by the Mount Plymouth-Sorrento Advisory Committee.

Steve Richey, representing the developer, said that to help with school crowding, a 19-acre school site will be made available to the school board. The parcel will become a park owned by the homeowner's association if the School Board fails to build on the site within five years.



Commissioners applauded the effort of the two groups working together to develop common ground. The development was approved 5-0.

Sorrento Hills wasn't such a collaborative effort. It was to be built south of Sorrento Springs, another development owned by the same company, Eagles Dunes II LLC. The 202-acre site, southwest of the intersection of State Road 44 and County Road 437, has decreased in residential units, originally starting with some 900 units and now dropping to 579 units at a density of 2.8 units per acre.

Campione, again representing concerned area residents, said the area should be allowed only two units to the acre.

"It is entirely inappropriate for this location," Campione said of the proposed density.

Resident Robert Curry said Sorrento Springs was an "aberration" that should never have been approved. Using Sorrento Springs to validate the density of Sorrento Hills, Curry said, would set a precedent for "more bad history."

John Gray Jr., manager of Eagles Dunes II, told commissioners exactly what they would get if his case was denied: a development of 160 units with no central utilities, buffers, water reuse or amenities.

After a consensus from commissioners showed the application would be rejected, John Gray Sr. withdrew the request for the planned unit development, while Gray Jr. called out that "all concessions are off the table."